families network

[Guest guest]

Hello Families Network! As you may have already heard, this morning

Governor Corzine directed his cabinet members to cut the fiscal year 2010

budget (the budget we are operating under now) by $400 million by December

1st. The Governor is also maintaining the hiring freeze and placing

additional restrictions on state spending. For more information, you can

find the Star-Ledger article at

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-15/12574683193310.xml & \

coll=1.

We don't yet know what this will mean for services to people with

developmental disabilities, but we anticipate the Division of Developmental

Disabilities will face some significant cuts. As soon as we have more

information, I will let you know. Clearly we will be fighting hard against

any cuts to services, so stay tuned for action alerts on this issue - we

will need your help!

Also, the Department of Human Services will be holding budget forums and

this may be opportunity to oppose the cuts. We don't yet know what format

these forums will take given this new announcement of budget cuts and the

recent election results. I will certainly be back in touch with additional

information as soon as we know more. In the meantime, the dates and

locations of the budget forums can be found at

http://www.state.nj.us/humanservices/home/budget/index.html. As always,

please feel free to contact me with any questions.

Denbigh Shelton

Director, Family Advocacy Program

The Arc of New Jersey

985 Livingston Avenue

North Brunswick, NJ 08902

(732) 246-2525 ext. 49

dshelton@...

www.arcfamilyadvocacy.org

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