Senator Steven Oroho, a member of the Senate Budget & Appropriations Committee, responded to Governor Christie’s announcement that the state’s once indebted Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund now contains a positive balance of $1 billion.

Sen. Steven Oroho said that the state UI Fund’s positive balance of $1 billion is a result of good management and fiscal discipline. (Flickr)

“To go from a $2.1 billion deficit to a $1 billion balance in a few short years is a testament to the efforts of the Legislature and the Christie Administration to impose the fiscal discipline needed to restore New Jersey’s Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund to solvency,” said Oroho.

Oroho served on a bipartisan Unemployment Insurance Task Force which issued a final report on how to address the state’s UI fund deficit in January of 2012.

NJ’s UI Fund moving from a $2.1B deficit to a $1B balance is the result of good management and fiscal discipline. https://t.co/rRHPD3hFK9

— Senator Steven Oroho (@stevenoroho) April 12, 2016

“Our efforts to prevent UI abuse through increased penalties for those who file fraudulent claims has helped to return hundreds of millions of dollars to the fund and lower taxes on state businesses,” Oroho added.

Oroho sponsored a pair of laws enacted in 2013 related to unemployment insurance taxes and benefits fraud.

S-2738 assessed a penalty against an individual who fraudulently obtains unemployment benefits at 25 percent of the amount obtained by deception.

S-2404 eliminated the 10 percent surcharge on employer unemployment taxes during Fiscal Year 2014.