By Bob Braun/Star-Ledger Columnist 

By Kelly Heyboer and Jarrett Renshaw/Star-Ledger Staff

Two independent visions for Rutgers-Rowan — both developed in secret — are sure to keep the conflict and controversy going

By Tara Nurin

New Jersey Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) and Sen. Joseph Vitale (D-Middlesex) are working to introduce legislation next week that would retain Rutgers-Camden within Rutgers University, while establishing a joint governing board to share funds and fiduciary responsibilities between Rutgers-Camden and Rowan University.

The bill will be the culmination of a series of closed-door meetings between Sweeney, South Jersey political power broker George Norcross, representatives from Gov. Chris Christie’s administration, and others who met to work out a compromise between the status quo and a full merger of the two South Jersey schools – an idea that was initiated by a Christie-appointed task force in January.

The bill will surely meet with fierce opposition from Rutgers’ faculty, who’ve come out against this type of plan in the past, and the boards of Trustees and Governors, who are expected to release their own joint vision for restructuring the state’s higher education system next week. According to sources with inside knowledge, the executive boards of both organizations met last Thursday to devise a set of so-called principles, for possible reorganization of New Jersey’s colleges, universities, and medical schools.

Although the executive boards are keeping the contents secret for now, sources suspect trustees won’t allow an outside entity like the proposed governing board to make major decisions about Rutgers assets.

“There is no way the Board of Trustees is going to let anybody have control over any component of Rutgers,” insisted one Rutgers source.

“There is a sizable majority of Board of Trustees members who will not go along with a compromise that cedes financial control over Rutgers-Camden or Newark,” agreed another source.

Sources predict the Board of Trustees will be ready to challenge the bill in court if it passes. Earlier this month, the board released a manifesto asserting that Rutgers-Camden must remain fully within Rutgers’ domain and that only the two Rutgers governing boards have legal jurisdiction to approve the relinquishment of any of its campuses.

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By Jarrett Renshaw/Statehouse Bureau

TRENTON — A group of Essex County lawmakers plans to present a laundry list of demands to Senate President Stephen Sweeney Thursday that must be satisfied before they support a controversial overhaul of the state’s higher education system, the Star Ledger has learned.

The long and potentially expensive list — which includes granting Rutgers-Newark unprecedented autonomy and pumping millions of state taxpayer dollars into Newark’s University Hospital and medical school — was laid out in a conference call headed by Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-Essex) and Newark Mayor Cory Booker, according to sources familiar with the plan.

The sources requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak for the delegation.

The last-minute demands add another layer of complexity to a political drama already beset with uncertainty and a deadline of July 1 imposed by Gov. Chris Christie, who is intent on rearranging the structure of several hospitals, universities and medical institutions in the state.

Oliver told the lawmakers she will insist that if the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark is going to lose revenue-generating assets, it must receive new financial support and not be left to wither and die.

Under the current proposal, Rutgers University would absorb UMDNJ’s Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, public health school and cancer institute in New Brunswick-Piscataway. Most of the remaining pieces of UMDNJ would be renamed New Jersey Health Sciences University, while University Hospital would remain tethered to UMDNJ but come under control of a public-private partnership.

Oliver told the group today that UMDNJ is saddled with debt that must be lightened if the institution is to remain financially viable, the sources said, adding that Rutgers must absorb some of the debt service along with taxpayers through annual appropriations.

Moreover, she said part of UMDNJ’s debt must be refinanced through the budget or as part of a capital plan for broader higher education that is under consideration, and that the state must increase its subsidies to University Hospital, the sources said.

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By Leslie Brody, Staff Writer. The Record.

More than a dozen union representatives, Newark residents and other advocates on Tuesday stressed the importance of bolstering University Hospital, concerned that services for the poor might be hurt by a reorganization plan for the state’s medical school system.

Denise Rodgers, interim president of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, argued for more state funding for University Hospital — UMDNJ’s debt-ridden teaching hospital and the state’s largest charity-care provider — because the school “can no longer afford to subsidize it.”

The hospital needs more support, she said, especially as the federal health care law takes effect and increases competition among health care providers.

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By James Osborne, Inquirer Staff Writer.

Negotiations over a proposed overhaul of New Jersey’s public universities are unlikely to be completed in time to introduce compromise legislation by Friday, as he had hoped, State Senate President Stephen Sweeney said Tuesday.

“It could be next week, but not much longer than that. It has to be very soon because the clock is ticking,” the Gloucester County Democrat said, referring to Gov. Christie’s desire to have a plan in place by July 1. “Whatever we do we have to have to time vet it. It can’t be rushed through.”

The comments came as skepticism grows among many in Trenton about the likelihood of gaining consensus in a little over a month’s time. Assemblyman Louis Greenwald (D., Camden) last week called the odds of striking a deal by July 1 about the same as being struck by lightning.

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