Assembly budget hearing yields widespread appeals to restore funding for colleges, social services and housing

Chairwoman Pintermarin convened a long day of testimony in Trenton, where leaders across higher education, human services, housing, health care and local government pressed the Assembly Budget Committee to reverse or soften proposed FY2026 cuts.

Speakers included college presidents and students from New Jersey’s 18 community colleges, nonprofit executives representing programs for children, domestic‑violence survivors, tutors, legal services and more, long‑term care operators and advocates, affordable‑housing developers and local school and municipal officials. Each urged lawmakers to protect or restore specific line items, warn of service losses if funding is reduced, and propose alternative revenue or spending choices.

Community colleges: presidents, students and the New Jersey Council of County Colleges warned cuts to operating aid and student supports would reduce access and push up costs for students. Maria Heitkamp, chief innovation and policy officer for the New Jersey Council of County Colleges, told the committee the system educates roughly 240,000 students annually and asked lawmakers to restore the $20 million and other student aid the administration proposed to cut. Several college presidents described local workforce dependencies—nursing, radiography, manufacturing—and said reductions could force program curtailments, staffing losses and higher tuition.

Nonprofit and human‑services pleas: leaders from CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), Legal Services of New Jersey, the New Jersey Tutoring Corps, and other nonprofit service providers asked the committee to…