Governor Murphy – Three Years of a Stronger and Fairer New Jersey

COVID-19 Response

• Launched the largest statewide vaccination program in the state’s history grounded in efforts to ensure equitable access to all who live, work, and are being educated in New Jersey, with the goal of vaccinating 70 percent of adults by June 30th
• Built a network of over 800 vaccination sites and administered over 5.8 million doses, with 98 percent of all New Jersey residents living within five miles of where they can be vaccinated
• Leads all peer states in vaccine administration rates and efficiency, with 44 percent of the population having received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine as of mid-April 
• Launched the Community Contact Tracing Corps
• Supporting the mental health and well-being of health care workers and first responders through the HEAL NJ Healthcare Workers COVID Hope & Healing Helpline that offers live support for doctors, nurses, hospital staff, and all other health care personnel by trained crisis counselors and health care peers
• Focused on inclusive economic recovery by directing hundreds of millions of federal dollars into small business grants, child care support, rental assistance, and food assistance
• Deployed hundreds of millions in federal stimulus funds to school districts and institutions of higher education across the state to ensure robust remote learning, including closing the digital divide for an estimated 231,000 Pre K-12 students; supporting safe reopening of schools and institutions of higher education; and helping our students recover academically, socially, and emotionally from the pandemic
• Dedicated over $250 million to support family access to affordable child care during remote learning and to ensure New Jersey’s child care providers remained opened and supported throughout the pandemic
• Created nationally recognized public transit response through NJ TRANSIT for early actions to protect customers and employees

Criminal Justice Reform, Elections, And Gun Safety

• Reconstituted the Criminal Sentencing Review Commission to bring balance and fairness to our criminal justice system, and supported the Commission’s recommendations to eliminate mandatory minimums for non-violent drug and property offenses
• Established the Task Force for the Continued Transformation of Youth Justice in New Jersey
• Enacted a package of common-sense gun safety bills that make New Jersey among the states with the strongest gun laws in the nation, created the States for Gun Safety Coalition, and started the Center for Gun Violence Research
• Enacted one of the nation’s most progressive expungement reforms, to go into effect in 2021
• Made New Jersey the 12th state to require Automatic Voter Registration to expand access to voting
• Created an online system for voter registration
• Restored voting rights to over 80,000 residents on probation or parole
• Limited the use of solitary confinement in New Jersey’s prisons
• Ended prison gerrymandering
• Enacted in-person early voting and dedicated funding to support access

Economic And Workforce Development

• Unveiled statewide economic development plan to build a stronger and fairer economy and create the country’s most inclusive innovation economy
• Developed and passed a multi-billion-dollar economic recovery package that brings accountability and labor protections to New Jersey’s incentives programs and contains a broad but targeted suite of programs to lift the New Jersey economy, including:
• Creating NJ Emerge, a job creation tax credit focused on bringing new high-paying jobs to our communities, and investing in offshore wind manufacturing;
• Initiating new place-based programs to support commercial, industrial, mixed use, and residential projects, with an emphasis on projects that serve higher-need communities, support anchor institutions, redevelop brownfields, address food deserts, and/or revitalize historic properties;
• Creating and expanding innovation economy programs such as the Innovation Evergreen Fund, the Angel Investor Tax Credit, NJ Ignite, and the Film and Digital Media Tax Credit; and
• Directly financing small businesses to spur the Main Street recovery
• Reinvigorated and coordinated workforce development programs through the Jobs NJ plan, including growing apprenticeship programs and connecting worker training efforts to labor market demand
• Increased the allocation of Neighborhood Revitalization Tax Credits by 50 percent, which encourages corporations to invest in revitalizing low- and moderate-income communities
• Enacted legislation allowing sports betting at casinos and racetracks
• Met commitment to devote all Affordable Housing Trust Fund money to affordable housing, and pursued a comprehensive strategy to invest these resources to develop new affordable units and promote housing affordability
• Started a dedicated small business unit and created the Office of Economic Transformation at EDA
• Appointed the state’s first Chief Innovation Officer, and enhanced the state’s digital government services capacity through the New Jersey Office of Innovation
• Re-activated and funded the Commission of Science, Innovation and Technology to facilitate investments in the innovation economy
• Opened Choose New Jersey Offices in both Europe and India, and completed trade missions to Germany, India, and Israel
• Developed Opportunity Zone map nationally recognized for delivering long-term capital investment opportunities in low-income rural and urban communities 
• Provided unparalleled support to CDFIs, including over $10 million in dedicated COVID relief funding

Education

• Enacted or proposed increasing K-12 school funding by over one billion dollars since FY18 and signed landmark legislation to modernize and equitably distribute school funding
• Enacted or proposed increasing preschool funding by nearly $300 million since FY18 and made early education accessible for almost 6,600 more children in over 100 districts
• Launched the State’s “Computer Science for All” initiative and introduced the P-TECH educational model to New Jersey
• Transitioned away from PARCC
• Made New Jersey the first state to have access to arts education in all public school district and to adopt K-12 climate change standards across all core content areas
• Launched tuition-free community college in New Jersey for over ten thousand students, and proposed the Garden State Guarantee to provide a similar benefit for those in four-year colleges
• Developed a higher education strategic plan to improve quality and access to postsecondary education
• Introduced an outcomes-based allocation formula to rationalize higher-education funding
• Increased funding for the Educational Opportunity Fund each year and expanded Tuition Aid Grants to support DREAMers and incarcerated students
• Enacted STEM loan forgiveness legislation
• Launched K-12 and higher education grant applications for $500 million in bond funding authorized by the Securing Our Children’s Future Bond Act
• Shepherded the return of full local control to the Newark Public Schools Board of Education after 25 years as a state-operated school district and to the Paterson Public
• Schools Board of Education after nearly 30 years of state control of district operations
• Reduced child care subsidy co-payments for families by 50 percent, increased subsidy payments to providers, and invested over $100 million in new resources to support child care affordability

Energy And Environment

• Created the offshore wind goal of developing 7,500 megawatts (MW) by 2035 and announced solicitation schedule to meet the goal, created the WIND Institute, and announced plans to develop the New Jersey Wind Port
• Unveiled the State’s Energy Master Plan to meet the goal of 100 percent clean energy by 2050 and launched the Protecting Against Climate Threats (PACT) regulatory reform effort
• Unveiled a Statewide Climate Change Resilience Strategy to ensure a whole-of-government and statewide approach to ensuring New Jersey’s resilience
• Enacted legislation prohibiting the use of single-use plastic and paper bags in all stores and food service businesses statewide
• Created a dedicated Office of Climate Action and the Green Economy to address climate change and the transition to green jobs and the green economy, to pave the way for New Jersey’s clean energy future
• Enlisted experts to make up the New Jersey Council on the Green Economy to lead the transition to the clean energy economy and map out new pathways of green employment, while ensuring diversity and equity
• Steered New Jersey’s re-entry into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, whose auction proceeds will help launch a Green Bank and fund clean vehicle investments
• Committed to a goal of 330,000 registered light-duty electric vehicles by 2025 and created one of the country’s most ambitious electric vehicle rebate programs
• Launched the Zero Emission Incentive Program (NJZIP) to support the purchase of electric medium- and heavy-duty vehicles in Newark and Camden
• Signed historic environmental justice bill to protect overburdened communities from pollutants
• Banned the bear hunt on public lands and proposed a plan ending the bear hunt statewide
• Enacted legislation to ban fossil fuel exploration and drilling in state waters, and banned fracking
• Launched the State’s first community solar energy pilot and doubled the program’s allowed capacity
• Reduced Clean Energy Fund diversions from those in the previous administration
• Announced significant changes to the Reconstruction, Rehabilitation, Elevation, and Mitigation (RREM) Program and the Low-to-Moderate Income (LMI) Homeowner Rebuilding Program to support those recovering from Superstorm Sandy
• Introduced the Statewide Plan to Address Lead Exposure and made new investments into the Clean Water and Drinking Water programs

Infrastructure And Transportation

• Provided record subsidies to NJ TRANSIT and spared commuters from fare hikes for four consecutive years
• Secured funding for the Portal North Bridge (PNB) from the Federal Transit Administration to advance the project to the engineering phase; projected to create 7,900 FTE job years of direct employment from construction
• Broke ground on the $600 million project of replacing the 112-year-old Raritan River Bridge, with 18 additional key projects currently underway
• Dedicated $2.3 billion in additional capital projects to improve transit in New Jersey
• Led New Jersey toward full implementation of Positive Train Control, completing 88 percent of federal interim installation in 10 months following only 12 percent completion during the entire 8 years of the previous Administration
• Unveiled two new transformational plans for NJ TRANSIT: a new 10-year Strategic Plan, NJT2030, as well as a new, five-year Capital Plan that includes more than 100 programs and projects and identifies $17 billion in capital needs
• Set NJ TRANSIT on a path to achieve an all-electric fleet by 2040, starting with the early stages of the State’s first electric bus demonstration project in Camden
• Trained and graduated locomotive engineers at more than double the rate of the previous administration; as of April 2021, NJ TRANSIT has a full roster of locomotive engineers for the first time since 2011
• Enacted Public Private Partnership legislation
• Increased the number of Municipal Aid awards and reach of the program expanding from 516 awards to 505 municipalities in FY2018 to 545 awards to 542 municipalities in FY2020, including increased budget funds for Safe Streets and Transit Village programs

Fiscal Responsibility And Economic Justice

• Put New Jersey on a path to a $15 minimum wage
• Reinstated the millionaires’ tax
• Increased the Earned Income Tax Credit from 35 percent to 40 percent and expanded eligibility
• Made record pension contributions each year and proposed the first full contribution since 1996
• Created a Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCC) and proposed making the CDCC refundable and expanding eligibility
• Enacted one of the most expansive paid sick leave programs in the nation
• Created a new middle class tax rebate for nearly 800,000 families
• Enacted combined reporting to ensure that companies cannot place their profits in other states
• Kept spending on health benefits flat while covering more than 15,000 new members
• Oversaw the slowest growth in property taxes in an administration’s first three years since the 1990s
• Appointed bipartisan shared services czars and created the Local Assistance Bureau in DCA, which led to record numbers of shared service agreements in 2020
• Raised the cap for state property tax deductions
• Signed package of legislation addressing the foreclosure crisis
• Established the SecureChoice savings program
• Established a state-level Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
• Signed landmark legislation expanding paid family leave
• Implemented the recommendations of our Task Force on Employee Misclassification to protect New Jersey workers, and increased capacity in the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour division to advance strategic enforcement efforts
• Launched the Public Bank Implementation Board

Health Care

• Restored and expanded funding for women’s health and family planning services
• Launched the State-Based Exchange to help improve access to health coverage and care for residents, as well as implemented critical programs like the shared responsibility requirement and the reinsurance program to improve market stability and consumer affordability
• Created the New Jersey Health Plan Savings to provide more than $125 million in state subsidies to eligible individuals and families purchasing on the individual market and helped reduce average net premiums for targeted families to their lowest level since the launch of healthcare.gov
• Implemented significant affordability measures provided through the American Rescue Plan into the State-Based Exchange
• Launched the Cover All Kids initiative to provide health coverage access to nearly 90,000 uninsured children in New Jersey
• Proposed increased eligibility for the Pharmaceutical Assistance to the Aged and Disabled (PAAD) and Senior Gold programs to benefit over 20,000 seniors
• Signed legislation to protect consumers against surprise bills for out-of-network health services
• Launched the Nurture NJ program and unveiled a strategic plan to improve maternal health and eliminate racial disparities in health outcomes for the state’s mothers
• Enacted critical health care reforms aimed to improve health outcomes for women giving birth in the state, including proposal providing a year of post-partum coverage for mothers on Medicaid
• Enacted legislation to become the third state in the nation to provide Medicaid reimbursement for Doula care
• Increased the midwife Medicaid reimbursement rate for the first time in decades
• Reformed New Jersey’s Medicinal Marijuana Program, more than quintupling the number of patients since 2018
• Allocated hundreds of millions of dollars toward addressing the opioid crisis over three years, creating over 30 evidence-based programs across eight departments
• Rebalanced Children’s System of Care rates for the first time in 15 years to significantly invest comprehensive youth mental health
• Established the Office of Health Care Affordability and Transparency and issued Executive Order #217 to develop health care cost growth benchmarks and health insurance affordability standards to help mitigate the unsustainable rate of health care cost growth in the State

Social Justice And Equality

• Signed into law the nation’s strongest equal pay law
• Enacted historic adult-use cannabis reforms, with a focus on equity and social justice
• Signed a law prohibiting employers from using prior salary as a basis for employment
• Enacted legislation allowing residents to obtain drivers’ licenses regardless of immigration status
• Ensured that New Jersey DREAMers have access to in-state financial aid
• Allocated or proposed over $19 million over four years to provide legal representation for residents facing immigration issues
• Limited voluntary cooperation between local law enforcement agencies and federal immigration enforcement to build trust between local law enforcement and immigrant communities through the Attorney General’s Immigrant Trust Directive
• Assembled the most diverse cabinet in New Jersey history, including the first Sikh-American Attorney General and the first openly-LGBTQ environmental protection commissioner in United States history, the first Muslim-American commissioner in state history, and the first Cabinet in state history to include a majority of women among the Governor’s appointees
• Appointed the State’s first black female Supreme Court justice and nominated a civil rights lawyer to the Supreme Court in March
• Appointed the state’s first full-time Chief Diversity Officer
• Appointed the first Ombudsman for Individuals with Intellectual or Developmental Disabilities and Their Families
• Signed bills expanding rights and protections for New Jersey’s LGBTQ community
• Made New Jersey the 2nd state to ban child marriage under all circumstances
• Established the Commission on Puerto Rico Relief