TRENTON — Selling state assets such as toll roads represents the "greatest potential" to pay down debt and free up billions in cash flow for the state's coffers, Gov. Corzine said during Tuesday's State of the State address.

The idea has been under consideration, but Tuesday's address to the Legislature gave the strongest indication that toll roads could be sold or leased to a private company.

"Working together, I'm confident we can establish a framework for asset monetization that preserves the high standards of safety, service and maintenance that the public has a right to expect," Corzine said. "If we can't, we should not proceed."

Corzine said he wouldn't sell without guarantees that government would maintain control over toll hikes and maintenance and pledged he wouldn't use sale proceeds to balance the state's operating budget deficit.

While Corzine said his administration awaits a fiscal report on a potential sale before making a decision, some doubted whether a sale would be approved by the Legislature or the public.

"It's like selling your house to throw a party. That's not the right way to go," Sen. Diane Allen, R-Burlington, said. "I think in his mind, it's coming, but until he can show us that something like that makes prudent fiscal sense, very few of us would support it."

Assembly Majority Leader Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-Mercer, said the governor's remarks do not indicate a sale is imminent. "There is a lot of study, thought and consideration that's going to go into any decision," Watson Coleman said.

Senate President Richard J. Codey, D-Essex, who wanted to sell state assets but ran out of time during his 14 months as governor, said he doesn't know whether Corzine would be able to get public support for such a plan.

"He needs to do a big sales job on it with the public," Codey said. "The public is at best . . . leery of it."

Republicans said they would only support a sale if proceeds went to pay down debt and not to support the state's ever-growing operating budget.

"I will be examining this very closely because in the past we have borrowed to balance the state budget, and I do not want to see that happen with this matter," Senate Minority Leader Leonard Lance, R-Hunterdon, said.

Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce, R-Morris, doesn't think Corzine has committed to a sale.

"He might be throwing it out there as a trial balloon," DeCroce said. "We'll see what happens with the attitude of the general public, whether they go along with it or not."

Abigail Field, a lobbyist for the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group, which has been cautioning state officials that selling toll roads to a private company, which would be motivated more by profit than public good, could lead to toll increases, poor road maintenance and no improvements for the state's free highways, was pleased Corzine shared some of their concerns.

"He raised some of the right issues for walking away from a deal," Field said.

Assemblyman John Wisniewski, D-Middlesex, chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee, called a sale "the mother of one-shot deals" that would not be worth the instant influx of cash.

Gannett State Bureau writer Jonathan Tamari contributed to this story. Gregory J. Volpe: gvolpe@gannett.com