New Jersey State to Cut Spinal Cord Injury Research Funds

"In 1999, the state of New Jersey passed a law which took $1 from each traffic ticket and put that towards the funding of spinal cord injury research. In 2003 and then 2005, the state legislature passed similar legislation to take $1 from traffic tickets to pay for brain injury and autism research. The laws states that the money cannot be used for any other purpose. The New Jersey Commission for Spinal Cord Research funds approximately $3.5 million of spinal cord injury research per year. When I first came to New Jersey in 1997, there was little spinal cord injury research being done in the state. Now, there are over a dozen laboratories doing spinal cord injury research.

I just learned that Governor Chris Christie will be taking $5 million from the NJ Commission for Spinal Cord Research... this is the amount that was unspent from last year and this coming year's amounts. This will not only devastate the spinal cord injury program in the state but many students and fellows who are being funded by the Commission will no longer be getting their funding. The funds for spinal cord injury research are not coming from tax revenues. It comes from traffic tickets. The money was specifically designated for the purpose of supporting spinal cord injury research."

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"This decision by Governor Christy is apparently supported by the New Jersey assembly. It will steal $5 million of funds from the research funds for spinal cord injury, traumatic brain injury, and autism, collected from $1 surcharges on traffic tickets. This money will be put into the General Funds of the state to cover the deficit. "