Rowan’s vet school can ‘keep the lights on’ under tentative state budget deal, and other South Jersey program updates

Rowan University’s nascent veterinary school will get enough funding to “keep the lights on” under the tentative New Jersey budget deal, according to one South Jersey lawmaker.

It’s among several South Jersey programs with a fate tied to the negotiations ahead of the state’s June 30 budget deadline.

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill proposed completely slashing state funding for the state’s only vet school in her budget proposal rolled out in March.

The Shreiber School of Veterinary Medicine was created with state support and its first class just finished its first year. On top of training the next generation of vets and conducting research, the South Jersey institution provides veterinary services to the region and helps address a large animal vet shortage.

Since the four-year school only has had only one 75-student class paying tuition so far, the prospect of losing all state funding was potentially devastating.

The state legislature will vote Tuesday on a budget that allocates $6.2 million to the school, a lower number compared to the $8 million it got this year (and much lower than the $20 million it had requested). But the amount will be sufficient enough for the vet school to survive, said Sen. John Burzichelli, a Gloucester County Democrat.

“Will they keep the lights on? Will they continue to grow? I’m confident they can,” he said in a Monday interview.

Burzichelli said he and other supporters of the school were trying to allocate $12 million to the school to provide “more resources as they grow out.”

Rowan spokesperson Jose Cardona declined to comment because the deal has not been signed into law.

» READ MORE: Vet school under attack

The legislature is expected to approve the budget Tuesday, the final day before the new fiscal year begins on July 1. Sherrill has the power to veto items in the budget before signing it into law.

As part of her March proposal, Sherrill warned that legislators must provide cuts to equal out any spending they want to add to the budget, a stance she softened more recently.

On Friday, she said in Camden that because of cuts she identified with legislative leaders, there’s money for lawmakers to “really push into their local projects.” The state’s revenue forecasts have also gone up.

Sherrill announced last week that she came to a budget agreement with legislative leaders with a price tag of $60.7 billion, the same rounded figure she proposed earlier this year.

Then, on Sunday, legislators advanced a budget with $15 million more than Sherrill’s proposed total earlier this year.

Sherrill has repeatedly touted her budget proposal as” the most fiscally responsible budget New Jersey has seen in years,” though it’s the largest in the state’s history.

Sherrill’s original proposal also zeroed out funding for a program that provides medical and mental health care to South Jersey children who have experienced abuse in her budget proposal earlier this year. But the legislature restored funding to the same level as the current fiscal year at $1.85 million.

» READ MORE: Rowan is closing a health center for abused children because of Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s proposed budget

The Rowan-Virtua Child Abuse Research Education and Service Institute (CARES) has locations in Stratford in Camden County and Vineland in Cumberland County. Rowan informed employees of layoffs across both locations and said the university would be closing down the more rural Vineland location as a result of the cuts.

Cardona, the Rowan spokesperson, declined to say Monday whether the Vineland center will remain open and if the layoffs will be reversed. He said it’s “premature to comment on a budget that has not been approved.”

Dio Tsitouras, the executive director of the American Association of University Professors Biomedical and Health Sciences union — which represents CARES employees — said the union is awaiting “an announcement from Rowan that rescinds all layoffs and indicates that the Vineland office will remain open.”

“We are pleased that the budget the Legislature passed restores critical funding to the CARES program so that our members can continue serving the most vulnerable children of South Jersey,” Tsitouras said.

State Rep. Anthony Angelozzi, a Burlington County Democrat, said his office advocated for CARES, one of dozens of groups at risk of funding cuts that met with his office. He called the program’s work “imperative.”

“There were certain priorities we had to fight for because we are sorta on the ground in our districts in a way sometimes the governor is not,” he said. “There are some programs that legislators realize how profound they are at helping people that the governor may underestimate.”

New Jersey has one of the largest wage gaps for Hispanic women in the country. Hispanic Women’s Resource Centers were established by the legislature in the early 1990s to help that disparity, providing employment training and other support to Latinas. Sherrill proposed cutting 80% of state funding for these programs, down to just $535,000 statewide.

» READ MORE: Gov. Mikie Sherrill proposed an 80% cut to a program that provides job training and support to Hispanic women

Legislators restored most of that funding in their tentative budget to nearly $1.8 million but program leaders say it’s still not enough, at almost 30% less than this year’s allocation of $2.5 million.

The Latino Action Network Foundation runs these centers in partnership with six nonprofits across 14 sites, including five in South Jersey in Camden, Vineland, Hammonton, Pennsville, and Rio Grande.

Latino Action Network president Javier Robles said that decrease will still cause the closure of centers and reduce job training, mental health services, and English language classes to thousands of families statewide.

“At a time when Latino families across our state are being targeted by the right-wing Trump anti-immigrant agenda, these cuts will only put additional strain on our community,” Robles added.