Proposed Funding Cuts To Higher Education Restored in New Jersey’s Budget

Since Governor Jon Corzine unveiled his budget proposal this past March, how many times did you read or hear Corzine was cutting New Jersey’s budget by $2.5 billion? The only budget cut ever mentioned in the news was Corzine’s proposed $169 million reduction in funding for higher education.

However, a reading of the original budget revealed ‘one-time’ appropriations of $46 million from the previous year were included to come up with the $169 million figure. The true cut was $123 million, albeit in response to the waste, fraud and corruption recently uncovered in New Jersey’s institutions of higher learning. Update: Here’s a screen capture from page 73 of the original budget - Click picture to enlarge.
During the course of the budget battle, $132 million for higher education was added back into the budget that was ultimately signed by Corzine. Under the most liberal interpretation, funding for higher education was cut by $37 million. In reality, funding for higher education was increased by $9 million.

Here’s a screen capture from page 8 of the original budget. As you can see, overall spending was slated to increase $2.6 billion, a 9.2 percent increase over 2006. No one ever got around to identifying the other major budget cuts and for good reason, there weren’t any. Now that funding for higher education has been restored, can we all agree there are no cuts in Corzine’s budget?