After Gov. Jon S. Corzine's proposed budget for next year revealed $38 million in cuts to the University, the state's Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee held its first public hearing yesterday in which approximately 70 people registered to testify in an attempt to regain lost funding.
Dissatisfied University representatives and organizations, concerned citizens, state organizations, churches and health centers were present in the Multipurpose Room of the Rutgers Student Center on the College Avenue campus.
The hearing - which will be the first of many throughout March and April - was chaired by Budget and Appropriations Chair Sen. Barbara Buono, D-18th.
"The reason we have public hearings is so that the committee can hear from real people who are directly impacted by the changes imposed by the governor's proposed budget," Buono said. "Make no mistake about it: This is not going to be a warm and fuzzy budget. [But] you will be heard loud and clear. I can reassure you that your testimony will not fall on deaf ears."
Buono said all of the state's problems may not be solved in one year, but the committee will do its best to make progress.
"I am more hopeful than I have ever been during my tenure as a member of this committee that this current committee has the heart, has the courage to take on and to try and solve many of the intractable problems that face our state," Buono said.
Rutgers University Student Assembly chair Jim Kline, a Rutgers College senior, testified before the committee on behalf of the undergraduate population at the University.
Kline said the decline in state aid at places of higher education has resulted in the cutting of academic and educational programs and has placed the affordability of education in jeopardy, creating more strains on students. He said funding is a necessity because there are numerous economic benefits of well-funded higher education institutions.
"I am alarmed at the fact that our tuition has steadily increased each year well beyond inflation, and a whole generation is being crippled with inordinate amounts of debt," Kline said to the committee. "Even more alarming, it seems as though no one is attempting to solve this systemic problem of unsustainable funding. Please do not allow this budget to continue a vicious trend of uncontrollable tuition increases and insurmountable cuts to our education."
Kline said he has begun to work with presidents of other public student governments and student leaders at schools throughout the state to organize on behalf of higher education.
"I'm glad to see some students here - would love to see more - but these hearings and the whole budget process are definitely meant for us to get our voice out there," Kline said. "This just starts the process for all students involved here at Rutgers and all students across the state."
In a letter to the community, University President Richard L. McCormick said the governor's proposed budget would cut University funding by 11.6 percent.
"While higher education is not alone in absorbing cuts during a fiscal emergency in New Jersey, this year's reduction furthers a trend of decreasing state support for higher education. It would, in fact, be the lowest amount of state funding Rutgers has received in more than a decade," McCormick wrote.
But because the state's budget bill has not yet been formulated by the Legislature, McCormick urged faculty, staff, students, alumni and concerned members of the community to advocate for funding restoration by writing to the committee and attending the committee's hearings.
McCormick said Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Phillip J. Furmanski will meet with an informal committee to discuss how steps can be taken to absorb the severity of a funding cut.
Buono said the budget will be balanced, passed and signed by June 30, the end of the fiscal year.
