Tuesday's was the first of several summer hearings planned by Assembly Democrats, which Republicans have characterized as attempts to make the administration and their party look bad in an election year. Shortly after the hearing began, the governor's office put out a news release on his "Record of Protecting and Supporting Children."
Mark Valli, president of New Jersey After 3, testified Tuesday that the after-school program may have to shut if it loses all its state aid. The Legislature had wanted to give the program $3 million. The governor zeroed it out.
Parents of children in the program said they could not afford other programs and feared what would happen if children were left unsupervised.
The legislators also heard testimony in favor of restoring more funds than Christie allowed for other programs including educational services for the blind and visually impaired, court-appointed special advocates for abused and neglected children, and nursing home funding, which could affect Children's Specialized Hospital's skilled nursing facilities.
Josanne Pearsall of Millburn praised the care her severely handicapped daughter, Taylor, received from the Children's Specialized nursing facility in Union County, where she lived almost her entire life. She said her daughter, who suffered a brain trauma injury at birth, went to Children's Specialized from another hospital when she was 2 months old. The teenager died about three years ago.
The nursing facilities are 100 percent state-funded, said Theresa Leinker, a Children's Specialized spokeswoman reached after the hearing. A decision on hospital funding rates this summer could affect their funding.
