It’s here! It’s here! It’s finally here!

Today is the last day of New Jersey’s current Transportation Trust Fund (TTF) reauthorization before it expires. Will it be the day that NJ’s elected leaders finally increase the state’s second-lowest-in-the-nation gas tax?

Could this really be the day?

It’s been quite a week. While most New Jerseyans were sound asleep on Monday night, the Assembly was hard at work wheeling and dealing with Governor Christie. What resulted was a deal that would raise the gas tax by 23 cents while lowering the sales tax. The deal passed the Assembly by a vote of 53-23.

Governor Christie had once refused to entertain the idea of a gas tax increase, even in the face of a bankrupt TTF.  But as the clock ticked down, his tone changed. In October, Christie announced that he would consider a gas tax increase if only it were coupled with so-called “tax fairness.” (Fast-forward to this morning, when the governor appeared on NJ101.5 to defend — yes, defend — raising the gas tax.)

How did we get here? After an Olympic-caliber game of political hot potato, bi-partisan legislation to replenish the bankrupt Transportation Trust Fund was introduced last week and passed by the Assembly and Senate Budget committees. The bills (A10, A11, S2411, S2412) were poised for vote by both houses this past Monday so that a bill could be presented to the governor before Friday.  But by Monday evening, the vote was off.

Enter Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto, who engineered a deal late Monday with Governor Christie to raise the gas tax while reducing the sales tax from 7 percent to 6.5 percent on January 1, 2017 and then again to 6 percent a year later. The plan would replenish the TTF, but it would present trouble for NJ Transit, whose operating subsidy has historically come from the general fund (although over the last decade the agency has relied more heavily on Clean Energy Fund raids, toll revenue and and capital-to-operating transfers). It seems likely that another hit to NJ Transit’s budget will eventually lead to more fare hikes and service cuts.

Was Prieto’s last-minute decision due to the legislature’s inability to pass a straight-up gas tax increase with the number of votes required to win a veto override? Or was he angling to sweeten the deal for Governor Christie, so to avoid a veto altogether? If the latter, then why weren’t Senators Paul Sarlo or Steve Oroho (the sponsors of the matching Senate bills) part of the process? Shouldn’t we all be on the same page?

If you were asleep during the negotiations that took place earlier this week, you weren’t alone. Senate President Sweeney was also “surprised” to hear of the deal when he awoke Tuesday morning. And it looks like the deal could evolve even more as the final hour draws near. The Senate’s final voting session of FY2016 is already underway, but Sweeney has yet to list any bills addressing the Transportation Trust Fund. And although the legislation easily passed in the Assembly, it has less support in the Senate.

You might want to stay up late for this.