Save the Department of Agriculture and our State Parks

Governor Corzine created a budget that would get rid of the Department of Agriculture and lay off most of the people in the Department except for a few select employees to add them to other existing Departments like the Department of Environmental Protection. Agriculture in this state accounts for $82 billion dollars to the state economy and 60,000 jobs. Cutting the Department would save $1.7 million dollars a small fraction of the $2.7 billion in budget cuts in his $32.9 billion budget proposal. The Department of Agriculture is responsible for controlling insects like gypsy moths, food safety, farmland preservation, The Jersey Fresh Campaign, and numerous other important projects. The Department of Agriculture is small but it gets a lot done so instead of getting rid of it they should learn from it to help other Departments run more effectively.  The parks he wants to close are Monmouth Battlefield State Park, Stephens State Park, High Point State Park, Brendan T. Byrne State Forest, Round Valley Recreation Area, Parvin State Park, Jenny Jump State Forest, Worthington State Forest and Fort Mott State Park. In addition, Ringwood State Park, D&R Canal State Park and Washington Crossing State Park may suffer cuts in facilities or hours of operation. Closing the parks would save $3.7 million dollars but they would like to create two new state parks one in Trenton so the State house can see it out their windows and one in Paterson those projects would cost about $20 million of tax payers dollars for the parks. Cutting the Department of agriculture and closing state parks could have a drastic effect on all New Jersey citizens quality of life.