Christie to cut $450 million in school aid

Gov. Christie plans to use an executive order to cut around $450 million of state aid to education on Thursday, according to two people familiar with his plans.

The cut, about $150 million larger than the school aid reduction former Gov. Corzine had proposed in his final weeks in office, is expected to be the most significant in roughly $1.6 billion of new savings and spending reductions Christie is scheduled lay out in a speech to the full Legislature this morning.

Christie's administration has estimated that he inherited a $2.2 billion current year budget deficit. The gap is comprised of projected revenue shortfalls, increased spending requests from the Corzine administration and some proposed savings that were not enacted before Christie took office.

Christie is expected to accept hundreds of millions of dollars of savings Corzine had proposed before he left office to help close the budget shortfall, along with offering new cuts to a wide range of programs.

Christie will not be using lay offs to close the budget hole, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose the governor's plans.

The budget deficit has been a central focus of the early weeks of Christie's administration, and his speech on Thursday, his first major policy address, will be the first time he shows the details of how he intends to handle the state's most pressing problem: its woeful finances. Christie reiterated his philosophy in a recent letter to the Chamber of Commerce of Southern New Jersey, which reprinted a portion of the note in a recent e-mail to members.

"The actions we will take are designed - finally - to reform our spending habits, lower taxes and encourage job growth, reduce the size and scope of government and fund our obligations responsibly. There can be no more deficit-expanding gimmicks that have propped up previous budgets and gotten us into the situation we confront today," according to the letter from Christie to the chamber.

Christie campaigned on a cost-cutting platform and has ruled out tax increases, so his plans to cut are not a surprise. With the current fiscal year more than half over, school aid represents one of the few large pots of money remaining for Christie to target for reductions.

He intends to focus on schools that have surplus funds, though some districts are already worried about what the impact of cuts on class sizes and education programs.

After patching the current budget, Christie will have to close an $8 billion to $11 billion gap for the spending plan that begins July 1. That budget proposal is due to the Legislature on March 16.