State Puts Squeeze on Funding for Open-Space Preservation

The state expects to spend $100 million in the coming fiscal year to fund projects to preserve open space and farmland, at least $50 million shy of what New Jersey traditionally spends annually on the popular program.

In the fiscal year following that, the funding will drop off even more dramatically, with only $40 million -- at most -- available to fund open-space preservation, parkland projects, and buyouts of flood-prone properties, according to New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin.

The total does not include $250 million in federal funds that may be available to help buy out flood-prone properties in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, Martin said. The steep decline in funding reflects the exhaustion of a $400 million bond issue approved in 2009 to pay for open-space preservation and a failure of the Christie administration to enact a stable source of funding to finance that effort, despite a campaign pledge by the Republican candidate to do so.

It is a promise repeated by Martin two years ago, appearing before the same Assembly Budget Committee, when he testified then, saying the administration would unveil a stable source of funding for the effort within the next month or so.

“We must consider new ways of doing things and develop a new mode to make our parks self-sustaining,’’ Martin said in written remarks not delivered orally in his annual appearance before the Assembly budget panel. It has yet to happen.

Read more at NJSpotlight.com

NJ Spotlight is an issue-driven news website that provides critical insight to New Jersey’s communities and businesses. It is non-partisan, independent, policy-centered and community-minded.