Phil Murphy says he’ll restore funding for Arc program
TRENTON » A program for special needs children that was recently defunded by the Christie administration may be revived if Phil Murphy is elected governor.
A spokeswoman for Murphy’s campaign said Friday that a “state budget is about priorities.”
“This is a small state investment in some of our most vulnerable residents that pays huge dividends to these individuals, their families, and our communities,” Murphy for Governor Senior Advisor Julie Roginsky said in an email. “As governor, Phil would work to restore this critical funding.”
On Thursday, The Trentonian reported that the New Jersey Department of Children & Families (DCF) stripped vital funding away from a day-care program for young children with special needs run by Arc Mercer and five other community partners in the state.
Arc Mercer’s program called Step Ahead is set to end at the end of this month.
The program served newborns and children up to the age of 3 years old and provided types of therapies to the kids and taught parents skills to work with their children with special needs.
Arc Mercer had a capacity for 28 children in the program and there was usually a waiting list. Arc Mercer, which ran the program for 21 years, was the only provider in the county to offer these types of services.
Arc Mercer received an annual amount of $385,711 from DCF to run the childcare.
A DCF spokesman said the reason the funding was pulled was the growing cost of the Children’s System of Care budget and the agency’s desire to “provide more Intensive In-Home services, such as Applied Behavioral Analysis and in-home therapy, to children with intellectual and developmental disabilities.”
Murphy’s spokeswoman saw the situation as an opportunity to take a jab at Republican Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, who is running to succeed her boss.
“When Chris Christie and Kim Guadagno abandon children with special needs while retaining tax cuts for huge corporations and the wealthiest, there is a serious problem,” Roginsky said. “This administration continues to fail the neediest in our state with its misguided policies, and giving Chris Christie a third term by electing Kim Guadagno to succeed him means that families will continue to be left behind.”
Guadagno answered her cellphone when a Trentonian reporter called, but referred comment to her campaign spokesman about funding the Arc Mercer program.
“We aren’t familiar with the circumstances surrounding the decision to pull funding for this particular facility to be able to comment, but the lieutenant governor is a strong advocate for funding programs for special needs children and will continue to be an advocate for families of special needs children as governor,” campaign spokesman Ricky Diaz said Friday in an email.
Guadagno has opposed positions of Gov. Chris Christie before, such as his support of the gas tax and the $300 million project to renovate the Statehouse.
Arc Mercer is a stomping ground for many state politicians.
Guadagno visited Arc Mercer’s healthcare center in Trenton a few years ago and also has paid a visit to the nonprofit’s Ewing headquarters. Christie and State Sen. President Steve Sweeney also have made stops at Arc Mercer.
Murphy, a former U.S. ambassador of Germany and Goldman Sachs executive, visited the Ewing-based nonprofit that services people with developmental disabilities in December.
“When you hear things about shrinking government, unfortunately, the folks who get hurt aren’t the folks who are doing really well, it’s the folks who need government the most” Murphy said during his tour of the facility. “Government exists for the very families and persons in this room right now. And if we’re not standing up and making sure we continue to fund it, that it funds the folks who need government the most, then I would ask rhetorically, who are we?”
Arc Mercer operates a $20 million budget, with $11 million of it coming from the Division of Developmental Disabilities, a match of state and federal funding, including Medicaid, and $2 million from the New Jersey Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, Arc Mercer Executive Director Steve Cook previously told The Trentonian.
“These candidates for office need to understand that these state-level decisions make all in the difference in how we can deliver the program locally,” Cook said immediately following Murphy’s visit.