College On Taxpayers' Dime

During these extraordinarily turbulent economic times, many New Jersey families don't know how they are going to afford to send their children to college. As tuition rises and money grows tighter, the dream of a college education will remain just that - a dream - for a growing number of high school graduates.
With a budget deficit projected to be more than $2 billion, you would expect Gov. Jon Corzine is trying to save every tax dollar he can. So you shouldn't expect much help from the state, right? Well, the answer is yes or no. It all depends on whether you work for the Corzine administration. If you do, then you can pursue a higher education - at the taxpayers' expense.
Each year, state employees are reimbursed for college courses. Just how much tax money is spent is unknown. But if the amount spent by just one department of state government - the Department of Corrections - since 2007 is any indication, the cost to the taxpayers is tens of thousands of dollars, perhaps much more.
Assembly Republicans, through the Open Public Records Act, asked the Department of Corrections to produce copies of tuition reimbursement vouchers for its employees. More than $12,600 was spent to send clerks and corrections officers to universities in and out of the state including Temple, Rowan, Stockton and Rider. Others were paid for taking courses at community colleges, such as Raritan Valley, Mercer, Burlington and Essex.
The state's administrative code requires classes be taken at an accredited education institution and that they "relate to current or planned job responsibilities."
However, the connection between the courses taken by corrections employees and their actual job responsibilities were hard to fathom, raising the question whether there is sufficient oversight over the tuition reimbursement program. Some question whether the program should be continued at all given the state's dire financial circumstances and the increasing burden placed on taxpayers by the Corzine administration.

Consider the titles of just some of the courses billed to taxpayers:

• Foundations in Hinduism
• Special Topics in Religion
• Chorus I
• Ceramics
• Art Appreciation
• Theater Appreciation
• Political Film
• The World Ocean
• Introduction to Music
• Introduction to Theater
• General Earth Science
• Experiencing Literature
• World Regional Geography
• English Literature: Romantic to Present
• United States History since 1865
• Introduction to Politics
• Christian Social Conscience
• The Bible as Literature
• Principles of Microbiology
• Human Anatomy
• Principles of Geography
• Basic Algebra

After reviewing the course list, Bob Ingle, a columnist for Gannett New Jersey newspapers, was baffled. "What the heck does any of that have to do with prisons, prisoners or corrections?" he asked, rhetorically, in a column on May 10, 2009. "If they want to learn to be theater critics, let them do it with their own money."
When state budget cuts may force the closing of state-run schools for disabled students, subsidizing course work that is unrelated to a person's job is not the best use of state funds.
In an editorial published on May 12, 2009, The Press of Atlantic City said the state must toughen the criteria controlling the payment of tuition for state workers.
"Like everything else in these difficult economic times, tuition reimbursement programs - particularly in state government - should not be immune to scrutiny," the editorial stated. "We support giving state workers the training they need to do their jobs, and the opportunity to move up and expand their opportunities. But that financial support should be restricted only to those courses that directly affect how the state workers do their jobs."