N.J. budget may snag on controversy over colleges

TRENTON - The state's proposed $32 billion budget got caught up in anxieties over the overhaul of New Jersey's universities Thursday, as a group of Democratic lawmakers threatened to buck their party unless adoption of the university plan was postponed.

Nine Democrats, led by former Assembly Majority Leader Joseph Cryan of Union County, told their leaders they wanted to vote on the reorganization of the state's higher education system in the fall instead of next week. Otherwise, they said, they would vote against the budget that the party's leadership introduced Thursday.

"This legislation is three weeks old and is going to be the biggest change in higher education since the Rutgers Act of 1956," Cryan said in the middle of a marathon day at the Statehouse. "We need a full understanding of the implications of this bill."

The threat emerged after days of closed-door meetings as Democratic legislators tried to create a budget for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1, while trying to find common ground on the sweeping university restructuring.

The budget that Democrats introduced is similar to Gov. Christie's proposal, particularly because it uses the governor's revenue projections.

Christie is projecting a 7.2 percent increase in revenue next fiscal year, which Democrats have criticized as an overly optimistic ploy to enable to him to pay for a tax cut. Since Christie can certify the revenues when the fiscal year begins July 1, though, Democrats said they had no choice but to use his numbers.

Still, Democrats did not give Christie the across-the-board 10 percent tax cut he has sought for months. Instead, separate legislation is moving through the Legislature that sets aside $183 million for a credit on property taxes that would go into effect in January only if the state reaches the governor's revenue projections.

Also, in a party-line vote in the Senate budget committee, Democrats passed an increase on income taxes for millionaires, to pay for $789 million in property-tax relief.

Christie has vetoed the so-called millionaire's tax twice before, and would undoubtedly do it again.

Yet for all of Christie's talk of fiscal conservatism, the Democrats' $31.7 billion budget proposal is actually $62 million less than a revised plan Christie offered in May. Savings come in part from not filling some state worker positions and banking on the state's collecting a great percentage of outstanding debts.

There are also reductions reflected in the Democrats' plan. It cuts $9.4 million in spending on welfare, although Democrats said most of the cuts are based on recent recommendations from Christie's Treasury Department.

The Democrats added $59 million in spending, including $25 million for nursing homes, $3.5 million for cancer screening, $3.6 million for community health centers, and $5 million for legal services for the poor. There's also a $50 million increase in the earned-income tax credit for the working poor.

The plan passed out of the Senate budget committee along party lines. On Friday, it will be taken up by the Assembly budget committee, and it faces a vote of the full Assembly and Senate on Monday.

Its passage, though, now appears contingent on the nine maverick Assembly Democrats' efforts to delay the higher education overhaul.

A sponsor of the education bill, Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D., Gloucester), postponed the vote on that measure until Monday. If approved, it would fold most of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey into Rutgers University, and affiliate Rutgers-Camden with Rowan University.

The legislation, which has undergone extensive revision, was again amended Thursday when Democrats installed a provision that if any part of the plan could not be carried out, none of it would be carried out - pressuring a reluctant Rutgers to part with Rutgers-Camden or risk losing UMDNJ.