Christie's cuts leave Camden a big loser

TRENTON - When poor people are unjustly evicted from their Camden homes, fewer lawyers will be available to take their cases. When students at Camden's Catto Community School finish class at 3 p.m., the after-school program they used to attend is unlikely to exist. When tourists visit the battleship New Jersey on the Camden waterfront, they can't be sure the gates will be open.

Gov. Christie's $30.6 billion budget, signed Thursday, is an austere document that spreads the pain to many constituencies to avoid raising taxes.

In Camden, one of the poorest and most dangerous cities in the state, that pain will be felt from head to toe.

Most significant, Christie, a Republican, virtually eliminated the transitional-aid program that sent $69 million to Camden last fiscal year - almost 40 percent of the city's budget.

The transitional-aid fund will drop to $10 million and must be shared by several municipalities. It is unclear how Camden can pay for basic services without this cash.

"His budget is a slap at all working-class families, middle-class families, to people who can't help themselves," said Assemblyman Gilbert "Whip" Wilson (D., Camden). "And it's not a surprise that it's taking place."

Wilson is a former Camden police officer who watched 100 officers get laid off this year, in part because of a shortage in requested funding from the Christie administration.

To remedy that for the fiscal year that began Friday, Democratic legislators offered a budget that included $50 million for police departments in relatively high-crime municipalities, with $1.4 million for Camden. But Christie vetoed that line item.

Mayor Dana L. Redd, a Democrat who has allied herself with the governor and hs not criticized him publicly, did not return a call seeking comment.

But after a week in which a fourth grader was rendered blind by a stray bullet while walking home to feed his parakeets, Camden police union president John Williamson said he was outraged.

"In the second-most-dangerous city in America - that is quickly becoming the most dangerous city in America - it is absolutely inconceivable to cut the transitional-aid funding that much," Williamson said. "And I can tell you flat, there's going to be no revitalization if crime continues to climb like this."

Christie's staff e-mailed the details of the approximately $1 billion in line-item vetoes while Christie held a news conference Thursday, so reporters were ill-equipped to ask specific questions.

But Christie said Democrats had submitted a budget that would have been unconstitutional because it assumed several hundred million dollars in revenue that didn't exist. Arguments over this number dominated budget debates.

Christie also noted that he had increased educational funding $850 million over last year, added $20 million for hospitals, and funded a tax-relief program for senior citizens.

Christie said at the news conference he had made the cuts because "we can't afford it."

"I'd love to do most of the things they put in there," he said. "But . . . we don't have a money tree."

The Democrats countered that Christie could have increased taxes on millionaires to help the less fortunate.

"Anything that had to do with urban issues, it seems to me a red line went through that in the budget," said Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D., Essex).

For example, Democratic requests for $47 million for Urban Enterprise Zones, which have stimulated economic development in Camden and other distressed communities since the 1980s, were rejected.

It was unclear Friday how much money Camden's UEZ will lose and if that will mean the end of the program.

Even Camden institutions were given fiscally conservative treatment. The battleship New Jersey won't receive a $1.7 million grant, and that could affect visiting hours if the attraction doesn't pick up enough funding from the New Jersey Council on the Arts.

Christie also nixed Democrats' request for $2 million for Cooper University Hospital's trauma center. Dozens of positions for the new Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, under construction in Camden, were eliminated, too.

The state Supreme Court this year overruled Christie's attempts to reduce funding for poor school districts like Camden's. But an after-school program that once served six schools in Camden might be shut down.

New Jersey After 3, which provides educationally based programs at Catto in Camden and in Lindenwold and Gloucester City, may not open in the fall. The $15 million it received in 2005 has been whittled to zero. Much of its other funding is provided on a matching basis and depends on state dollars.

Mark Valli, president of the organization, said that students in his program had improved in reading and math, and that it had given parents the freedom to work extra hours.

Now what will those children do after school?

"Some of the kids, in an optimistic scenario, will watch TV, will play video games," he said. "Some of the kids will be sucked into the street life. I guess I can't believe it. I guess I can't believe we are unwilling to invest."

A range of other Christie vetoes for the poor disproportionately affect people in Camden because of the pervasive poverty there. Medicaid, welfare, AIDS drug funding, and more than $50 million for college scholarships are all on the chopping block. Democratic legislators have not indicated that they will try to override any of the vetoes.

For the second year in a row, Christie vetoed a $7.5 million line item for Planned Parenthood, which provides medical services, but no abortions, at its facility in downtown Camden. After Christie's veto last year, staff were laid off and hours rolled back, according to Planned Parenthood. Christie said health centers did similar work and were fully funded.

Legal Services of New Jersey, which provides free legal aid to low-income people, was hit with the ax for the second year in a row. Before Christie came into office, the program received $26.9 million. Now it will get $14.9 million.

So far, the cuts have meant the loss of 230 staff members, through layoffs and attrition. An additional 75 stand to lose their jobs.

Lawyers help "truly poor people by any measure," said Melville D. Miller Jr., president of the group. "And they bring the entire range of civil problems," including evictions, domestic violence, and complications with governmental benefits programs.

Christie's final allocation for the program was less than in his original budget proposal, which shocked Miller. He said he had never seen that in his 40 years with the group.

"Stunned," Miller said. "Completely caught without any kind of inkling or warning that there would be this further cut.

"So it's definitely a new, and very difficult, experience."