A toll hike was never considered
The New Jersey Turnpike Authority plans to sell $1.5 billion in Build America Bonds this week. The New Jersey Turnpike Authority adopted a 2011 budget today that cuts spending by 2 percent, mostly through the elimination of 66 jobs.
The agency’s $485.8 million budget for the calendar year beginning Jan. 1 shaves $9.3 million off the 2010 spending plan, including a savings of about $6 million resulting from the staff cuts, Officials said the agency will try to realize the cuts through attrition.
The agency also cut $2 million from the State Police budget for the turnpike and the Garden State Parkway, from $63 million to $61 million.
The number of job cuts is one fewer than in 2010, when the agency shed 67 positions. Including the 2011 cuts, the agency’s 2,150 employees will be down 22 percent, or 616 positions, since 2003, when the Turnpike Authority merged with the agency that had run the parkway.
A toll hike was never considered. The agency raised tolls in December 2008 as the first in a two-phase hike approved that year under a 10-year, $7 billion capital plan. Tom Feeney, a spokesman for the agency, said the second increase remains on schedule for January 2012.