El Hispano
by Jim Smith
Camden– Denouncing draconian cuts and what has been likened to the Reaganesque proposals of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a coalition of Hispanic community-based organizations and labor unions known as “Better Choices for New Jersey,” at a Friday afternoon press conference, called on state Legislators to oppose policies they see as pushing the burden of the state’s 11 billion deficit on to low and moderate income residents.
Addressing seventy to seventy-five members of this coalition, Elsa Candelario, the Executive Director of the Hispanic Family Service Center of Camden, argued that the educational and training services provided by the “social service programs” at the Hispanic Family Service Center, and similar organizations in New Jersey, were essential to “stimulating the economy” and creating jobs.
“The current economic climate,” Ms. Candelario continued, “is such that the community based organizations are being asked to provide much more with a lot less.”
Providing an array of services, including job training, career counseling, computer training, and English as a Second Language (ESL), are the type of services that assist women entering and reentering the job market.
The Christie administration’s budget would erase a $758,000 grant for the Hispanic Womens Center and a $540,000 grant for the Urban Women’s Center.
In addition, Governor Christie has proposed eliminating the Center for Hispanic Policy Research and Development, which dispensed grants in aid to thirty-three community-based organizations around the state of New Jersey.
Rebuking the Governor for “slashing the budget with an ax, rather than surgically,” Jose Ramos, the Executive Director of the Spanish American Social and Cultural Association noted that while the cuts to the Hispanic Policy Research and Development Center will save the state roughly $3.69 million, the cost of unemployment coverage for the 368 employees who are losing their jobs will run around $5.3 million.
“I just don’t think the Governor realizes the impact,” of the cuts, Wendy Melendez, of La Casa de Don Pedro of Newark, told El Hispano. La Casa de don Pedro serves around 200 clients each year and will lose 12 staff members from the cuts according to Ms. Melendez.
Receiving a multiplicity of services over the last five years, such as English language instruction and temporary shelter for herself and her seven children, Lora Paña, an immigrant from Mexico, told El Hispano that the Hispanic Family Service Center had helped “improve my income and self-esteem.”
“I hate to think that other women who need these services will not be able to get them,” Ms. Peña said.
A mother of three, Rosanna Genao, of the Dominican Republic, similarly told the Inquirer that the training she had obtained allowed her to open her own cleaning business and hire other Spanish-speaking workers.
Noting that the Hispanic Family Center had not only offered job training and ESL services, but prepared more than a dozen immigrants for the citizenship test over the past year, the Director of the Center, Altie Carrasquillo suggested that the Governor’s cuts were a “short-sighted” solution to the budget shortfall.
Describing the Governor’s polices as particularly”partisan,” Mr. Ramos said that the Legislature should resist plans to reduce taxes on those earning over $400,000.
A columnist for the Newark Star-Ledger, in a radio interview, appeared to agree with the arguments of many at the Latino leadership, saying that New Jersey’s budget problems were not only a question of “out of control” spending, but largely a precipitate drop in “revenue.”
Of the Governor’s drastic cuts, Mr. Moran said,”I don’t think it’s a shared sacrifice.”
Both Mr. Moran and historian Bridget Callahan predicted that “battle lines” were emerging between Democrats in the State Assembly and the Governor, and that there would likely be a government “shut down in July.”
Originally available at: http://www.el-hispano.com/id26.html
