By Patricia Alex, Staff Writer. The Record.
The financial details surrounding Governor Christie’s proposed university merger — which would jettison Rutgers’ Camden campus and has outraged alumni, students and staff — can all be worked out by the governor’s July 1 deadline, the head of the university’s governing board said Tuesday.
“The governor is a very important person; he says he wants this done by July 1,” said Ralph Izzo, who heads the Public Service Electric and Gas Co. “It’s clear that the governor is trying to optimize higher education in New Jersey.”
Izzo is one of those meeting in private to negotiate details of the merger. The group includes George Norcross, the South Jersey Democratic power broker driving part of the plan that would create a public research university centered on Rowan University. Also included in the group is Senate President Stephen Sweeney, a close friend of Norcross, whose district includes Rowan.
Sweeney is drafting legislation to enact the plan, spokesman Chris Donnelly said Tuesday. Donnelly, however, would not say what that legislation would contain or when it would be introduced.
Rutgers has hired consultants to analyze the financial impact of the plan. Rutgers’ financial chief has said it would be difficult to work out the finances of the complex arrangement — including disposition of bonds and one-time merger costs — by summer.
But Izzo, appearing before The Record’s editorial board Tuesday, said completing the financial arrangements is workable by that deadline, and he praised Christie’s wider vision in laying out the plan.
“There are multiple levers to pull, but I think the figures will be in place by July 1,” Izzo said.
Izzo was noncommittal when asked whether he would fight to save the Camden campus, saying it was less critical to preserve a branch of the state university than to look at the overall higher education landscape in the state.
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