rap #94 05/27/09
FREEHOLDERS OPPOSE LAST-MINUTE CHANGE THAT CUT NEARLY $870,000 FROM THE COUNTY’S SHARE OF FEDERAL STIMULUS MONEY
A LAST-MINUTE “adjustment” in a state funding formula robbed Ocean County of nearly $870,000 in federal stimulus
money.
Instead, the money was forwarded to the state’s cities.
“Once again the cities gain and Ocean County looses,” said Freeholder Deputy Director Gerry P. Little “Thanks to
Trenton lawmakers, federal money that was supposed to come to Ocean County, money that we were told was coming to the
county to help young people find jobs, was whisked away to the cities.”
A $939,123 grant to the county’s Workforce Investment Board for youth job creation was cut to $342,362.
Money for the adult portion of WIB was also cut, from $463,147 to $192,062.
According to Little, the amount of stimulus money coming to Ocean County and other suburban areas of the Garden
State did not sit too well with powerful lawmakers from some of the state’s cities.
The result? The funding formula used by Trenton to allocate the federal dollars was changed at the last moment,
sending more money to urban areas.
“This is an old story,” said Freeholder Joseph H. Vicari. “Every year we see more and more state taxpayers money
go to urban schools while fewer dollars come to Ocean County. Now that state is doing the same thing with the federal
stimulus money.”
Vicari, who is liaison to the WIB, said Ocean County needed and deserved its full share of the stimulus package.
“During the first half of 2009, Ocean County’s unemployment rate has ranked as high as fourth among New Jersey’s
21 counties,” Vicari said. “We would have used that money to train people and put them to work.”
The Freeholders fired off a letter to David J. Socolow, Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Labor and
Workforce Development, requesting that the original funding formula be reinstated.
“To think that this vital program will suffer because of alleged political maneuvering and partisanship is of
grave concern to us,” the Freeholders said in the letter.
Little, who is also liaison to the Department of Human Services, said staff members in the department were
already formulating how the stimulus money could be best spent when word came down from Trenton that the numbers were
being sliced.
“We were planning on those dollars and allocating their best use,” Little said. “Thanks to the Corzine
Administration, the federal money is not going to where the real need is.”
