N.J. Assembly hearing on budget cuts turns into discussion on funding for blind students

Published: Wednesday, July 20, 2011, 6:00 AM     Updated: Wednesday, July 20, 2011, 7:06 AM

 By Susan K. Livio/Statehouse Bureau t

John Munson/The Star-LedgerA student at the Lighthouse International's Filomen M D'Agostino Greenberg Music School in New York learns to read music in braille. Testimony from a blind student in N.J. revealed today that he'd missed a month of braille lessons due to budget cuts.

TRENTON — An Assembly hearing dissecting the budget cuts made by Gov. Chris Christie provided fresh fodder for partisan bickering Tuesday when a 5-year-old blind youth and his mother testified that he had not received Braille instruction in more than a month.

"His teachers ... recommended that he continue with summer Braille tutoring.’’ Anju Dharia of Princeton, the boy’s mother, said. "With the reduction of (teachers) we are afraid that Krish’s leaning will regress and he may be unable to keep up with his sighted peers.’’

Her son, Krish, told a rapt Assembly Budget and Appropriations Committee, "I love to do everything in school!’’ and later added, "I want Braille!’’

Democrats and Republicans appeared surprised by the testimony.

They recalled that officials of the Department of Human Services had testified in the spring that reorganizing the Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired sought by the Christie administration and eliminating 20 part-time teaching jobs, would not disrupt year-round instruction.

The reorganization is expected to save $1.53 million by eliminating the 20 teachers who worked 10 months of the year. Of those, 17 were transferred and three retired; 50 full-time teachers remain employed by the commission.

"This sounds like Charles Dickens! " Assemblywoman Joan Quigley (D-Hudson) said. "This doesn’t sound like 21st century New Jersey,’’

Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth) volunteered to work with the Dharia and any other families affected by the reorganization. But he said he objected to the Democrats’ intent of the meeting — "to beat up the administration.’’

Nicole Brossoie, a spokeswoman for the Department of Human Services, which oversees commission for the blind, said up to 60 students statewide might have to be reassigned under the reorganization.

However, she said the delay would be temporary.

"Students who qualify and whose families have requested summer Braille instruction will receive it,’’ Brossoie said.

She added, "Part of July will be a transition period for the commission, but no student receiving services will lose the services — although some rescheduling of instruction may occur."

Please support good work

I say that we need to support this movement if your are from 17 to 38 and work for a living please support good work:

"What is Rutgers One?"

Rutgers One is a coalition of students, staff, faculty and alumni united to defend quality public higher education.  We love Rutgers and aspire to be among the best public universities. Rutgers One is all about students.

Rutgers management has consistently failed to set an example of good citizenship. A handful of executives make all the meaningful decisions, ignore student opinion and violate faculty and staff contracts.  Management’s actions send a powerful message that students, faculty and staff do not matter while education is unworthy of the full support of university resources.

It is time for other voices to be heard. Another university is possible – one in which the people that make Rutgers work participate in the decision-making process.

We can help to restore Rutgers to greatness by creating an authentic campus community.  Rutgers One is common ground for students, staff and faculty to meet as equals and act together as citizens. 

The failed policies of the Rutgers leadership are part of a troubling national trend.  Thirty years of declining state funding and poor leadership has led to management practices that do not reward, in fact penalize, the people that make Rutgers work.  While management claims to value academic excellence, resources are being diverted away from the academic mission and spent on athletics, fancy dorms, entertainment, and ever higher pay for ever increasing numbers of top executives. Students and their families bear those costs as high tuition, crushing debt and dimmed futures while faculty and staff face reduced compensation, layoff threats, and substandard working conditions. 

Rutgers One is an advocate for public higher education. Together we will take action to:

• Restore education, service, and support for students as Rutgers’ first priority.
• Increase public investment for higher education: our economy and democracy needs a broadly educated population for critical thinking, innovation and citizenship. Education is a public good. 
• Keep RU affordable by freezing tuition and addressing student debt: a Rutgers education should be accessible to all. Student debt threatens economic recovery. 
• Enforce fair labor standards: faculty and staff require the institutional support needed to do state-of-the-art work. Respect for collective bargaining is essential.

·      Eliminate mismanagement.  No-bid contracts, executive-level bloat, and spending scandals hurt Rutgers’ reputation and undermine support from the state.

RUTGERS ONE

STUDENTS • FACULTY • STAFF • ALUMNI

____________________________________________________

THE STATE UNIVERSITY FOR ALL OF NEW JERSEY

Universities in N.J. are some of the costliest in the nation

Published: Thursday, June 30, 2011, 8:35 PM     Updated: Friday, July 01, 2011, 5:44 AM

 By Kelly Heyboer/ The Star-Ledger 

Alexandra Pais/New Jersey Local News ServiceMead Hall at Drew University is shown in a September 2009 file photo.

For years, New Jersey college students have complained that they were paying some of the highest tuition rates in the country.

Now, new federal data confirms that, with several local colleges — including New Jersey Institute of Technology, the College of New Jersey, Rowan University and Drew University — being rated among the costliest in the nation.

The U.S. Department of Education released a series of lists today highlighting the colleges with the highest tuition, total costs and price increases. The new data, which will be updated every year, is designed to hold schools more accountable for rapidly rising tuition.

"We hope this information will encourage schools to continue their efforts to make the costs of college more transparent so students make informed decisions and aren’t saddled with unmanageable debt," Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said.

The data — called the College Affordability and Transparency Lists — rank the costliest colleges based on their 2009-10 tuition and fees. Several New Jersey schools were singled out:

• At $12,856 a year, tuition and fees at NJIT in Newark are fifth highest in the nation among public colleges. Only Penn State, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Vermont and St. Mary’s College in Maryland charge more. The College of New Jersey in Ewing, at $12,722 a year, was 11th on the list.

• Rowan University in Glassboro was the fourth most expensive public college in the country based on net price, which is calculated by factoring in room, board, books and how many students get financial aid, scholarships and grants. The data found the average in-state Rowan student pays $19,344 a year after their financial aid is subtracted from the bill.

• Drew University in Madison also got poor marks for its net price, with the average student paying $34,379 a year. Drew had the 13th highest net price in the nation among private colleges.

• William Paterson, Fairleigh Dickinson and DeVry universities were cited as having some of the fastest-rising college costs in the nation.

The full lists are available online at the College Affordability and Transparency Center website (collegecost.ed.gov). The charts were published for the first time as required by a 2008 law.

College officials were quick to defend their tuition rates or criticize the methods the federal government used to create the lists.

Ali Houshmand, Rowan’s interim president, said his university ranked among the costliest because the government’s net cost calculations did not take into account the high number of transfer students at the South Jersey school. Transfer students traditionally don’t receive as much financial aid as incoming freshmen do, helping push Rowan up the net cost list.

"You’re just looking at part of the picture, not the whole picture," Houshmand said. "I really don’t think it’s fair."

Drew University officials said the federal study looked at numbers that were several years old and that their school has already made improvements to hold down tuition.

"Drew is more affordable than ever," said David Muha, a university spokesman. "We’re giving out almost 25 percent more in financial aid than we were when this data was collected."

Joel Bloom, NJIT’s vice president for academic and student services, made no apologies for the high tuition at the engineering and technology school. NJIT has faced state funding cuts while paying to build state-of-the-art labs and to attract top professors in one of the most expensive states in the nation, he said.

"Our students are going to leave here and have a very good return on what they invest in their education," Bloom said.

Officials at the College of New Jersey said their high graduation rate makes the public college a great buy. "Outcomes are what you really want to look at when you evaluate costs," said Stacy Schuster, a College of New Jersey spokeswoman.

Most of New Jersey’s public colleges will set their 2011-12 tuition later this month after Gov. Chris Christie signs the state budget.

Gov. Christie vetoes are designed to cut down on 'red tape'

Published: Thursday, July 07, 2011, 6:10 AM     Updated: Thursday, July 07, 2011, 2:17 PM

 By Salvador Rizzo/Statehouse Bureau 

Jerry McCrea/The Star-LedgerWith a handful of vetoes Gov. Chris Christie scrapped "unnecessary and burdensome" paperwork requirements in the name of good governance, as he put it.

TRENTON — Spending wasn’t the only thing Gov. Chris Christie slashed last week. With a handful of vetoes he stripped the Legislature of its formal oversight powers regarding a number of programs while easing restrictions on his own office and the agencies run by his cabinet.

As Christie put it, he scrapped "unnecessary and burdensome" paperwork requirements in the name of good governance. To Democrats and political analysts, however, it was a power grab from a chief executive determined to suppress the other branches of government.

"The governor has made no bones about not liking the Legislature’s oversight capability, and the budget’s fine print shows it," said Derek Roseman, the spokesman for Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester).

In one instance, the Department of Corrections will no longer be required to submit reports about its drug rehabilitation programs for prison inmates, nor will it have to brief lawmakers on its educational programs. Those accountability measures proposed by Democrats were excised just as Christie cut $3.5 million in health care for inmates with a separate veto, though a corrections spokeswoman said treatment of prisoners would not be jeopardized.

At the same time, the executive branch will no longer need approval from the Office of Information Technology should it want to buy computer equipment costing more than $5,000. Anyone who wants to donate money to the government can bypass the Legislature, and a $10 million cap on snow removal is gone — allowing New Jersey to plow as much money as it wants into snow removal.

A spokesman for Christie, Michael Drewniak, declined to comment.

But Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth), the point man for Republicans on the Budget Committee, said, "Wherever we can facilitate cutting red tape through the budgetary process, we all support that."

One of the governor’s vetoes eases the burden on New Jersey hospitals, which will no longer have to document claims from uninsured patients. Hospitals already keep track of uninsured claims in separate records, said Kerry McKean Kelly, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Hospital Association, so Christie is helping them avoid redundancy.

"Just in general, there are a lot of documentation requirements for hospitals, so if you can consolidate some, that’s a relief," she said.

In cutting red tape through the budget process, said Brigid Harrison, a political science professor at Montclair State University, Christie was simply taking a page from the national conservative playbook and doing what two other Republicans governors, Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Rick Scott of Florida, have already done.

"It’s a testament to (Christie’s) desire and the desire of his administration to really push the envelope in order to have state government reflect conservative values," Harrison said.

She said it also provided a window into the hostile relationship between the Republican governor and the Democratic-controlled Legislature.

"He one-upped them by being politically vindictive," Harrison said. "The two sides are playing a political game of tit-for-tat while taxpayers are caught in the crossfire."

In the past year, several members of Christie’s cabinet — the treasurer, the attorney general, the transportation commissioner — were upbraided by Democratic lawmakers at one budget hearing after another. Now, with the help of Christie’s veto pen, the treasurer, Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff, can skip one of those hearings.

Robert Williams, a Rutgers University law professor who specializes in New Jersey’s constitution, said the courts have ruled that the state’s chief executive, who occupies one of the most powerful governor’s offices in the nation, can strike spending as well as policy language from the budget.

He said legislators could still seek updates from Christie administration officials on any programs — they can summon anyone they want for hearings, for instance — but eliminating the reports is certain to undercut their authority as watchdogs.

Without the reports, however, Williams said that any official testifying before lawmakers would probably have far fewer answers on hand.

"I’m not sure vetoes are common as a deregulation tool, but they certainly could be," Williams said. "It sounds like in this particular case the message is, ‘Dont bother my agency with this stuff.’"

Gov. Christie, LaHood urged to reach truce on $271M for scrapped commuter tunnel

Published: Thursday, July 07, 2011, 9:14 PM     Updated: Thursday, July 07, 2011, 9:14 PM

 By Salvador Rizzo/Statehouse Bureau 

Jerry McCrea/The Star-LedgerWorkers convene at a construction site for the since-canceled ARC Tunnel last year.

TRENTON — The state’s Democratic senators are urging Gov. Chris Christie and U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to let bygones be bygones and drop their feud over the $271 million they’ve been fighting over since May.

Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez, both Democrats, said today in a letter to Christie and LaHood that they should work out a deal that softens the blow for New Jersey taxpayers.

The governor canceled a new rail tunnel to New York, and vowed to go to court to keep the $271 million in federal funds intended for the project.

LaHood and Christie, both Republicans, have each said they want the full $271 million. In the meantime, the state has been racking up legal fees and interest to the tune of $1.5 million so far.

“Despite our opposition to the cancellation of the project, we believe it is important not to punish the taxpayers of New Jersey and burden them with additional, unnecessary costs,” the senators wrote. “Annually, the cost of interest and penalties could cost New Jersey taxpayers up to an additional $18 million.”

LaHood has threatened to collect the money by withholding future funds for New Jersey, but so far he has held off, waiting for Christie to file an appeal in federal court as promised in early May.

Christie’s office declined to comment last night.

Before the feud spilled into the courts, LaHood offered to let New Jersey keep $128 million if it repaid the remainder of the money. Christie rejected that deal and is fighting to keep the whole $271 million, which could go toward alternate tunnel projects.

Report blames zoning laws for lack of affordable housing in New Jersey

Published: Thursday, July 07, 2011, 5:00 AM

 By Megan DeMarco/Statehouse Bureau 

Mitsu Yasukawa/ The Star-LedgerExterior photo of Montgomery Heights in Newark, a mid-rise building with 80 one-to three-bedroom stately apartments and town homes offering panoramic views and first-class amenities, located at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd and Montgomery Street, Newark, in this September 2010 photo.

TRENTON — Development of big homes on big lots and zoning that favors businesses over townhouses has stymied efforts to make wealthy towns affordable for low-income residents and helped push New Jersey’s suburban sprawl, a new report to be released today concludes.

The report, conducted by Rowan University, says it’s tougher for lower-income residents to afford to live in wealthy suburban towns today than it was in 1970.

All this occurs despite the long effort to push towns to add affordable housing and adhere to "smart growth" initiatives, and zoning rules are to blame, the report says.

"Municipalities are making it almost impossible to build apartments and townhouses that are affordable to middle-class New Jerseyans," said Adam Gordon, spokesman for Fair Share Housing Center, which paid for the study. "Middle-class families cannot afford a three-acre home."

Bill Dressel, executive director of the state’s League of Municipalities, said no one has advocated more for a consistent state planning policy than New Jersey’s towns and cities.

Although he declined to comment at length before reading the full report, Dressel said local officials should have been questioned during the research.

"I’m rather suspect of a report that does not really address the local circumstances on why zoning and planning decisions are made the way they are," Dressel said.

The report says development of large suburban lots holding just one or two homes an acre dominated the state since 1986, while the construction of more affordable apartments, townhouses, and smaller single-family developments tapered. 

Before 1986, 58 percent of residential development was in cities and already built-up suburbs. Since then, two thirds occurred in rural and less compact areas, the report says. Most of the remaining land in the state that can be developed is zoned for big lots in less populated areas, said John Hasse, a Rowan University professor and author of the report.

The report adds to an already-contentious debate over how to comply with court-ordered affordable housing mandates. Last week, Gov. Chris Christie abolished the Council on Affordable Housing, long criticized for being overly burdensome and ineffectively implementing affordable housing rules, and shifted its duties to the state Department of Community Affairs.

It found that although it’s not a catch-all, court-ordered affordable housing efforts were effective in some areas, and sprawl would be significantly worse without them.

The report also says municipalities have focused on industrial and commercial development, which pays tax dividends, rather than multi-unit apartments and townhouses that bring in more school-aged children.

"Municipalities want as few households as possible on any given piece of land," said Tim Evans, research director for New Jersey Future, a nonpartisan research group that helped produce the report.

In two of the state’s fastest-growing counties — Somerset and Monmouth — the report found current zoning laws would create a disproportionate number of jobs to housing units. If every area that could be zoned was built to capacity, Somerset would have 16 jobs for each housing unit, and Monmouth would have seven.

The recommended number is about one and a half jobs per housing unit. The result would be gridlock traffic, long commutes, and families moving out of state, experts warn.

N.J. attorney general unveils reforms to stop steroids abuse by law enforcement officers

Published: Thursday, July 07, 2011, 2:20 PM     Updated: Thursday, July 07, 2011, 4:27 PM

 By Amy Brittain & Mark Mueller/The Star-Ledger 

EnlargeStar-Ledger Wire ServicesRafael Galan, an officer in the Passaic County Sheriff's Department, received anabolic steroids from Jersey City physician Joseph Colao. Galan, shown posing in 2006 for a calendar shoot, faced a criminal charge of official misconduct for allegedly tipping off the subject of a drug investigation. The charge was dropped, and he was reinstated earlier this year, according to Bill Maer, the department's spokesperson. (Greg Pallante / NorthJersey.com)N.J. law enforcement, firefighters use steroids - Strong at Any Cost (gallery) gallery (19 photos)

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HAMILTON — Flanked by county prosecutors and state officials, Attorney General Paula Dow today formally unveiled a group of reforms designed to eliminate the abuse of anabolic steroids in New Jersey’s law enforcement ranks.

The measures — recommended by a panel Dow formed in December — pave the way for police departments to randomly test officers for steroids, increase safeguards in taxpayer-funded prescription drug plans and heighten scrutiny of physicians who improperly prescribe steroids and human growth hormone.

The reforms follow a series of Star-Ledger reports about the use of steroids in law enforcement. The newspaper found at least 248 officers and firefighters obtained the substances from an unscrupulous Jersey City physician, Joseph Colao.

In most cases, they used their government benefits to pay for drugs that ran as much as $1,100 a month. Taxpayers picked up the bill, which amounted to millions of dollars.

"The investigative series done by The Newark Star-Ledger highlighted the damage that can be done when a doctor’s actions go unchecked and individuals become aware of the opportunity to obtain medications they may not be entitled to," Dow said at an 11 a.m. press conference in Hamilton. "The cost is borne not just by taxpayers, but in the erosion of faith people have in those who protect and serve. This is unacceptable."

Among the initiatives, state guidelines on drug-testing will be rewritten to explicitly authorize departments to randomly test their officers for steroids. The guidelines will also allow chiefs or prosecutors to test officers if they have a "reasonable suspicion" of steroid use or as a condition of fitness-for-duty evaluations.

Other measures:

• Any officer who tests positive will be required to provide a note from a physician confirming that the use of steroids or human growth hormone is for a legitimate medical condition and that the officer is fit for duty.

• Departments are encouraged to require officers to self-report prescriptions for anabolic steroids and human growth hormone based on the authority to determine fitness for duty.

• Dow will recommend prescriptions for steroids or growth hormone be filled largely by mail order through Medco, the state’s pharmacy benefits manager. The provision is meant to help Medco spot potential abuses.

• A "working group" of prosecutors, investigators and attorneys who regularly handle prescription fraud cases will meet quarterly to share information and ensure the changes are being implemented. The group will also aggressively investigate tips from the public, informants and criminal defendants seeking plea deals.

• The state Board of Medical Examiners, which oversees doctors in New Jersey, will convene a committee of experts to review current regulations regarding steroids and growth hormone and to recommend changes meant to curtail prescriptions for anti-aging purposes.

• Growth hormone will be added to the state’s prescription drug monitoring program, which is now in development. When complete, the program will track all prescriptions of controlled dangerous substances.