in our Spotlight on Business Report there was key budget work happening alongside all those rallies today at the state house where lawmakers got their first big picture Revenue outlook for the newly proposed budget hearing for the first time from the state treasurer and New Jersey's top nonpartisan fiscal experts over whether their numbers add up budget and finance writer John reitmeyer was at the Senate budget Committee hearing and joins me now from the state house so John first question to you does OLS and the treasurer's numbers match oh hey Brianna and I guess it depends on how you feel about a billion dollars these days that's the difference that we see right now between the forecast that we received today from the office of legislative services and what we received about a month ago from the Murphy Administration and that covers both the remaining months of the current fiscal year and the full 12 months of the fiscal year that will begin on July 1 and so a billion dollars can sure go a long way in New Jersey as we hear all about in in budget hearings about the need for maybe more more spending on K-12 schools and social services but when you look at the the spending the state does over two full fiscal years that totals a hundred billion dollars so this billion dollar difference is really only one percent of that total budget pie over two fiscal years yeah a little more than half of that 53 billion for this budget that we're currently talking about but what type of difference is that going to make I mean do you expect this to get lawmakers tripped up as the budget negotiations continue it's a good question so in the short term because the state has been building its reserves the Gap is about 375 million if all the less is estimates prove to be more accurate than the administrations so that can all be covered by what's in Surplus right now which totals into the billions looking ahead the Gap would be a little bit bigger and this will all be revised in May once we get the the data from April income tax collections which are always crucial for the state budget the Gap is bigger in in the new fiscal year almost 700 million dollars and and that is a number that'll have to be worked on by lawmakers who have the responsibility to draft the annual budget and from the initial sound of things it looks like lawmakers are inclined to trust the OLS estimates at this point again it's reasonable I think the variance is not that big when you look at the big picture but at the same time we're headed into a lot of economic bumpiness we already see some issues with the banking industry and I said I think lawmakers are inclined to look at this a little bit more conservative conservatively at least at this point in the process yeah well how is that going to change spending because up until now they've been somewhat flush with cash as you've reported they've been able to um you know pay down debt make pension uh liabilities boost reserves so should we expect that to go by the wayside I think I think it's too early to tell and and again we'll get more refined projections in a few weeks but you know there is a big Surplus being built up or projected for the next fiscal year there's also a reduction in corporate taxes that are planned because of surcharge on top earning businesses is phasing out there's a Planned expansion of a child tax credit that all affects the revenue stream and so the numbers are going to move for sure we just don't know in which direction when we get the latest updates which will come again after those April income tax collections are counted up and then lawmakers face the really difficult tasks of actually writing that budget bill yeah where a billion dollars as you said is somewhat of a drop in the bucket there uh John reitmeyer for us from the state house thanks John you're welcome support for the business report provided by New Jersey American Water we keep life flowing online at amwater.com/njaw