New Jersey.

Gov. Jim Florio last week signed a $15.9 billion fiscal 1994 budget, after little of the drama seen in previous years.

"The process of creating this plan for the coming year is a vast improvement over the budget hell of last year," Florio said in a statement announcing he would sign the spending plan.

Last year, over the governor's objection, Republicans rolled back a one-cent increase in the state sales tax. And there were threats in the Legislature to undo Florio's entire slate of 1990 tax increases, which would have blown a $2.8 billion hole in the budget.

This time around. despite the complete absence of Democratic support in the Legislature for the Republican-drafted budget, there was also very little arguing and political posturing.

Florio said the new budget will have a surplus of more than $400 million, in contrast to the past several years in which New Jersey's surpluses have been virtually non-existent.

"Less than one-third of this budget is devoted to the 19 departments of state government," Florio said. "We are holding the line on the state payroll without layoffs, anticipating that through early retirements and attrition we will bring the state government work force down by another 4,700 this year, to where it is 10,000 less than it was four years ago."

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