NJ’s COVID Relief Transfers To Undocumented Fund Questioned By GOP

NEW JERSEY — A New Jersey assembly member claimed that Gov. Phil Murphy's administration may have violated state law by transferring too much money into a fund for New Jerseyans locked out of COVID relief. But the administration says their actions followed their interpretation of state-budget language.

The dispute sends from money the administration transferred from the Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Fund to the Excluded New Jerseyans Fund. The ENJF provides financial relief to residents ineligible for federal stimulus checks and COVID-related unemployment assistance, such as undocumented immigrants and people re-entering public life after incarceration.

The Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Fund — part of the American Rescue Plan — includes $200 million for meeting demands caused by the pandemic. The funds get allocated to different agencies as needed. The state Department of Community Affairs transferred $10 million from the COVID-recovery funding to the Excluded New Jerseyans Fund on April 18 and then did so again April 29.

But Assemblymember Hal Wirth says these allocations, which total $20 million, may violate a state law included in the FY 2022 budget. The budget language says expenditures from the Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Fund cannot "exceed $10,000,000 for each such eligible program" without approval from the Joint Budget Oversight Committee.

"This obviously isn’t the first time that Murphy and his team have decided check and balances aren’t important," said Assemblyman Hal Wirths, the GOP budget officer. "If you give big government advocates an inch, I can guarantee they will take a mile and take their time to justify it. It’s incredible how power-drunk Governor Murphy and his administration gets."

But Murphy's administration believes it's following the budget law by transferring the funds in chunks of $10 million or less.

"Each allocation from the Governor’s $200 million set aside is made in allocations of $10 million or less, in accordance with the Administration’s interpretation of budget language," Alyana Alfaro, an administration spokesperson, told Patch via email. "The ENJF has been expanded through a series of programmatic phases, each of which has been announced publicly."

Assembly Republicans have claimed that the Office of Legislative Services — part of the State Legislature — received no response from the administration's Office of Management and Budget after three inquiries. But Patch received a copy of the Office of Budget and Management's May 24 response to the Office of Legislative Services about this topic.

The New Jersey Department of Human Services launched the Excluded New Jerseyans Fund last fall, following a push from advocates to help ease the burden of those ineligible for COVID relief. Eligible households were initially able to get a one-time payment of up to $1,000 per person, with a maximum of $2,000 per household, an amount that was eventually doubled. Read more: New Fund For NJ Immigrants 'Left Behind' From COVID Aid

But the state only distributed about $6 million out of $40 million allocated by Dec. 30 — the deadline to use federal COVID-relief money that powered the fund. The remaining $34 million was re-appropriated to state expenses at the New Jersey Department of Human Services, including payroll and other departmental costs during the pandemic.

Some advocates have blasted the program's setup, calling it needlessly overcomplicated, plagued with delays and vastly underfunded for aiding the state's estimated 500,000 undocumented residents, including 300,000 in the labor force. Read more: NJ 'Excluded Immigrant' Fund Was Set Up To Fail, Advocates Say

New Jersey's Legislative Latino Caucus said they were "greatly disappointed by this poor stewardship of resources." Read more: Immigrant Rights Advocates Blast NJ For 'Raiding' COVID Fund

"Thousands of workers continue to struggle in the wake of the pandemic," the caucus said in a statement last January. "We cannot allow this mishandling of relief monies to come at the expense of those who need it."

Following the public backlash from immigrant advocates, the Murphy administration announced in late January that it would restore to Excluded New Jerseyans Fund. Read more: NJ Will Restore 'Raided' COVID Fund; Immigration Activists Cheer

"Following a strong community reaction to the news of changes to the fund last week, Gov. Murphy made the right move by re-opening and replenishing the Excluded New Jerseyan Fund and committing to a more streamlined application process," said Jenny Llugcha of Make the Road New Jersey, an immigrant-advocacy group.