New Jersey’s budget remains “structurally imbalanced” as Governor Chris Christie (R) continues to make only partial payments into the state’s retirement system, according to S&P Global Ratings, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. Christie’s proposed spending plan for fiscal 2018, which starts July 1, would leave the state with small reserves and “some vulnerability to potential revenue shortfalls,” analysts David Hitchcock and John Sugden said in a report. Future budgets “look much worse,” according to S&P, which reduced its credit rating on the state in November to A-, the fourth-lowest investment grade. That downgrade was the 10th from the three-major rating companies under Christie, the most of any New Jersey governor. Christie, a second-term Republican, leaves office in January. His successor “will face tough funding decisions as early as fiscal 2019,” S&P said.
