Kocubinski and Spedding: Malone and Dancer's Budget 'Cuts' Would Cost Students and Taxpayers More

(30th Legislative District) -- Democratic Assembly candidates John Kocubinski and Bill Spedding today challenged Republican incumbents Joe Malone and Ron Dancer to show how their proposed $783 million in budget cuts would not hurt New Jersey college students and raise property taxes throughout Central Jersey.

            “Assemblymen Malone and Dancer claim they can painlessly cut hundreds of millions of dollars when the simple fact is they can’t,” said Kocubinski. “They want to make crippling cuts to education that would jeopardize the futures of children across the state and hit taxpayers of the 30^thDistrict right in their wallets.”

            Under Malone and Dancer’s targeted proposal, over $200 million would be cut from education aid. Such a cut would throw the state’s school funding formula back into court only weeks after the state Supreme Court finally ended the 30-year-old Abbott District system that siphoned billions of dollars from suburban and rural schools to the cities.

            The Democrats noted that the recently passed state budget actually would increase school funding by more than $270 million, including roughly $2 million for schools in the 30th Legislative District.

            Kocubinski and Spedding said the Republicans’ cuts would jeopardize the more than $15 million in new state aid the schools have received since the funding formula took effect prior to the 2008-2009 school year, and could force residents to make up the difference with higher property taxes.

            “Local property taxpayers are actually benefitting from this new school aid and now Malone and Dancer want the courts to once again step in and take it away,” said Spedding. “These proposed cuts may make nice election year sound bites, but they would be horrific public policy.”

            The Democrats also criticized the Republican budget’s provision to cut $48 million from higher education funding. They noted the cut would be exacerbated by the subsequent loss of approximately $74 million in federal assistance that is tied to the state’s ability to support its public colleges and universities.

            They said the loss of more than $125 million would lead to double-digit tuition hikes. In contrast, they noted the new state budget would cap tuition increases at three percent.

            “Families and college students are finding it tough enough to pay their rising tuition bills in these hard economic times without Malone and Dancer pulling the rug right out from under them,” said Spedding, “We cannot conscionably force college students and their parents to pay even more for tuition.”

“Why the Republicans would want to lump New Jersey in with states like Connecticut, Arizona and California that are cutting billions of dollars in education assistance is beyond comprehension,” said Kocubinski. “If these cuts represent our opponents’ priorities, then they need to take some time over the summer to rethink this disastrous plan that would destroy our middle-class values.”