Number Of The Day
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$5,540
Full-time New Jersey public employees are paid about an average of $5,540 a month - - at least that’s what they were paid in March 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That was the third-highest salary in the survey, following the District of Columbia ($5,900) and California ($5,774.) The survey included all public employees -- state and local – combined. Schools and universities employ the most public workers as a group, but other than university professors, they were not the highest paid. Nationally, firefighters and electrical power workers were paid the most.
Of the salaries of public workers in neighboring states, New York ($5,345), was the only one higher than the national average of ($4,388). Pennsylvania was $4,364, and Delaware was $4,287.
The survey also cited a few other interesting statistics. New Jersey was one of the majority of states that lost less than two percent of its state workers, while a few (California, Illinois, and Virginia among them), lost more than 2 percent, and Rhode Island lost more than 4 percent.
On the other hand, Texas and North Dakota increased their number of public workers by more than 4 percent.
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5
Today is Groundhog’s Day, and inevitably there will be lots of news stories about whether Punxsutawney Phil predicts six more weeks of winter. But for many New Jerseyans, the question is not whether there will be six more weeks of winter, but whether there will be a winter. December was the fifth warmest on record in the Garden State. And although the data is not complete for January, everyone knows it was quite a balmy month.
This follows 2011, which was the wettest year on record in New Jersey, with freak storms, including a record August rain and one of the earliest severe snowstorms on record. So, regardless of whether it's cloudy or sunny in Punxsutawney, PA, today, one thing's for sure: the weather is not what it was.
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$21.7 million
Pharmaceutical companies have paid New Jersey doctors and other health professionals more than $21.7 million since 2009 to promote their drugs, according to a nationwide database compiled by ProPublica, the nonprofit investigative news site.
ProPublica notes that accepting money from a drug company is not strictly unethical but should raise questions of conflict of interest. It also distinguishes money for research from that for speaking or consulting, even though all are included on the list. The database is incomplete, however, since pharmaceuticals are not required to report these payments, although they will have to beginning in 2013. Nevertheless, 12 pharmaceutical companies have begun to release this information.
Many New Jersey hospitals and research centers, along with well-known physicians, are included on the list. To learn more about this issue and to see if your physician is accepting consulting fees from big pharma, visit the ProPublica site.
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12
Parents in need of some kind of support from the state -- whether it be information or financial -- should check out Parent Link, a website providing parents with links to key services, facts about legal rights, hotlines for emergencies, as well as basic parenting information. The site, which is the product of the New Jersey Early Childhood Comprehensive System team, says it answers 12 identifiable needs for New Jersey parents.
The site is a one-stop resource for parents who need to understand their rights for maternity/family leave; where to turn for help with special-needs children; what tests and types of child healthcare are mandated in the Garden State; advice on developmental delays in children; and facts about availability of financial and other support programs.
The 12 needs that the site says it supports are: Access to Healthcare, Insurance and Medical Homes; Mental Health and Social-Emotional Development; Early Care and Education/Child Care; Parent Education; Family Support; Financing; Governance; Family Leadership Development; Provider/Practitioner Support; Communication; Standards; Monitoring and Accountability.
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33.4 million
A lot of people visit Newark every year -- even if it is only to see the inside of an airport. Newark Liberty International Airport serviced 33 million paying passengers for the 12 months ending November 30, about one-third of them international passengers. Statistics provided by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey showed that 22 million passengers during that period were domestic, while 11.4 million were international.
Since the planes used for international flights are so much larger than those used for domestic travel, it makes sense that there were 297,830 domestic flights and 97,380 international flights.
And how did all those people get to the airport? More than 3 million took a private car, 900,000 took a taxi, almost 2 million took the Air Train, about 348,000 took a NJ Transit bus, and about 273,000 took an airport coach.
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600
New Jersey's known for its colorful diners, and no wonder -- there are more than 600 of them in the Garden State, the largest concentration in the world.
These independently owned restaurants, normally boasting extensive menus of individually cooked meals, continue to thrive in New Jersey, despite intense competition from chains and fast-food restaurants. The most famous happen to be in north Jersey -- such as the Tick Tock Diner in Clifton, the White Manna in Hackensack, and the Skylark in Edison – but there are well-known and well-loved diners in every county in the state, if not every town. (Rosie's Diner, of paper towel fame, was once the most famous diner in the U.S. but has since been moved from Little Ferry to Rockford, MI.)
To find a New Jersey diner near you, check out the appropriately named Find-a-Diner.
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15 percent
A state comptroller audit of the childcare assistance program administered by the Department of Human Services found that 15 percent of children enrolled in the program are ineligible based on family income. The program is limited to participants who earn no more than 200 percent of the federal poverty level, or $37,060 a year for a family of three.
The audit estimates that more than 4,000 eligible children currently on a waiting list of 8,000 could be receiving childcare if the ineligible families were removed from the program.
The $124 million program administered by the Division of Family Development (DFD) of DHS is jointly funded by the state and federal governments. It is aimed at providing working parents or parents attending school with subsidized childcare through 140 state-licensed centers. To be eligible for the program, families are required to fill out applications that detail their residency, employment, and wage status.
DFD pays an outside agency $421,000 a year to confirm income status on a quarterly basis. However, the audit found that DFD does not use the reports to qualify participants.
Although misrepresentation of income appears to be a chronic problem -- one family reported income of $18,200 on their application and $94,075 on their income tax return -- there were other issues discovered. Caseworkers often placed children in the system using the Social Security number 999-99-9999, indicating that the children may have no social security numbers, which is required to prove legal status. (DFD has been found to overlook this in other programs as well, according to the audit, and thus is responsible for overpaying more than $14 million in subsidies.) DFD was also paying subsidies to childcare centers for absent or non-existent children, which the audit said could be costing the state about $6 million a year.
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70
Every month, 70 New Jersey youths make a suicide attempt serious enough for hospitalization, and in 2008, 68 New Jerseyans 24 years and younger were successful. This makes suicide the fourth leading cause of death of New Jersey youths, according to the state Department of Children and Families.
Nevertheless, this statistic is relatively low compared with other states: New Jersey ranks one of the four lowest in rates of suicide in the country. The state's Youth Suicide Prevention Plan credits state policies as part of the reason -- pointing to strong gun laws and a state mandate that requires every county to have psychiatric screening centers and crisis hotlines staffed 24/7, as well as train school personnel in suicide warning signs. More than 40 percent of suicide attempts follow previous suicidal behaviors.
Counties also run programs aimed at helping youths deal with traumatic loss, bringing together school personnel, mental health clinicians, law enforcement, social service agencies and others. In the 18 month period ending March 2010, 3,991 individuals received on-site trauma response assistance to schools and communities after a death by suicide, homicide, or other critical incidents.
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$2,543
Think you'd like to take a trip to Indianapolis for the chance to see the New York Giants win a fourth Super Bowl? If so, it could cost you at least $2,543 a ticket.
That was the price of a Super Bowl ticket on the resale site StubHub.com last night at 9 p.m. At that time there were 2,894 tickets available, down from 3,223 earlier in the morning at a slightly lower $2,429 price. And for those interested, full suites are available from $550,000 to $600,000.
If those prices are too rich for your blood, you could chance that they'll drop just before game day. An analysis by the New York Times shows that prices spike just after the conference championship games, once fans know if their team has advanced. Prices then fall, precipitously, as game time nears and sellers become nervous about being stuck with unsold tickets. Of course, this Super Bowl pits the New York metro region's Giants against the New England Patriots, so it's anyone's guess how much well-heeled and rabid fans will be willing to pay.
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7.3 percent
Incidents of violence in New Jersey public schools increased about 7.3 percent over a three-year period, from 10, 617 incidents to 11,213 during the past school year, according to an annual report by acting education commissioner Chris Cerf to the Senate and Assembly education committees.
The number of actual assaults, however, went down about 8 percent, from 3,437 to 3,161.
What accounts for the increase in violence? Harassment, intimidation, bullying, and threats, known as HIBT incidents, have risen dramatically since the 2009-2010 school year, from 2,846 to 3,412, or nearly 20 percent. Children in grades 7-8 (33 percent) and 9-10 (24.6 percent) were responsible for most of the HIBT incidents. Fights (4,043), criminal threats, (263), robbery/extortion (82), and sex offenses (252) were also on the rise, but not at such a high rate.
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22.7
New Jersey’s teen birthrate of 22.7 per 1,000 live births annually is the fifth lowest in the nation, according to statehealthfacts.org, a health website funded by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut are the states with lower teen birthrates, with the Granite State having a rate of 16.4 per 1,000. The average for the country was 39.1 per 1,000.
Mississippi, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas are the states with the highest teen birthrates, with Mississippi having nearly triple the rate of New Jersey and Connecticut, with 64.2 per 1,000. Neighboring states of New York (24.4), Pennsylvania (29.3), and Delaware (35.3) were also lower than the national average.
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1
Saying that a child's wellbeing is directly related to the state where she or he lives, the 2012 Kids Count data book ranks New Jersey first in the nation among states in its Child and Youth Well-Being Index (CWI). The index, published by the Anne E. Casey Foundation, looks at 28 indicators, from the percentage of those with health insurance to fourth and eighth grade reading and math scores to infant mortality rates and low birth rates, among other factors.
Although the nation's No. 1 ranking is significant, it does lag in the use of the data, since the 2012 rankings look at indicators from 2007.
According to the report, the rankings show a strong correlation between children's well-being and state policies that drive investments in children. Saying that higher taxes are better for children, the foundation says that states should increase investments in education and that policymakers must "recognize that the costs of shortchanging children today is too high a price to pay in the future."
While New Jersey ranked first in the nation, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Utah and Connecticut ranked second through fifth. New York ranked 10th, Pennsylvania ranked 11th and Delaware ranked 21st. The lowest-ranking states were New Mexico, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Nevada.
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12
New Jersey oenophiles can now buy up to 12 cases of wine directly from out-of-state wineries and have it shipped to their doorsteps, after Gov. Chris Christie signed the bill into law on Tuesday.
Only wineries that produce 250,000 cases of wine or less will be able to ship directly to New Jerseyans, and out-of-state wineries must purchase a license to sell wine in New Jersey at a cost of $938.
The bill is intended to help New Jersey wineries who want to open salesrooms for their wines. A previous bill, which allowed local wineries to sell their wines in salesrooms but barred out-of-state wineries from doing so, was deemed unconstitutional by the federal courts.
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$2.37 billion
New Jersey's roads and bridges are getting a $2.37 billion investment this year, more than half of which comes from the federal government. A total of $625 million comes from the Transportation Trust Fund, $343 million comes from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, with other smaller sources of funding.
The biggest chunk of investment is in the state's bridges, with $828 million planned to go to rehabilitating, reinforcing, and painting. Infrastructure investment to highways will get $357 million, and road repaving is budgeted at $287 million. Safety, pedestrian, and bicycle enhancements are also outlined in the budget.
If you want to see exactly what is being spent in your neck of the woods, the state Department of Transportation is providing a county by county breakdown, as well as a breakdown by major state highways, of their budget plans.
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25 percent
As of the end of 2010, there were 25,518 inmates in the state Department of Corrections prison system, 25 percent of whom were being held on drug charges or convictions. Inmates convicted of violent offenses made up 52 percent of the population, with nonviolent offenders making up the remaining population with 23 percent. It's also interesting to note that 72 percent of the population has been incarcerated with mandatory sentences.
Accordingly, 22 percent of inmates are being held in a maximum-security facility, with 35 percent in a medium-security facility, and 27 percent in a minimum-security institution. Community-based facilities held most of the remaining inmates in custody. Few inmates have terms longer than 10 years, with 46 percent of those in custody being sentenced to 5 years or less. Those serving life in prison make up about 5 percent of the population.
When it comes to the race of the inmates, 61.5 percent are black, 21 percent are white, and 17 percent are Hispanic.
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32 percent
The Highlands Act may be under attack by Gov. Chris Christie and some of the towns within the region but according to the Highlands Council, 32 percent of the planning area (142,422 acres) has been protected under conforming petitions from local towns. Submitting these plans for approval is voluntary, and most of these plans were approved in 2011. Another 97 percent of the Preservation Area (401,903 acres), which is not voluntary, has met conformance with the Highlands Regional Master Plan.
The council, in its annual report, says that 37 Highlands municipalities and two counties have had their submitted petitions approved by the council as conforming to the master plan, 30 of them in 2011.
Nevertheless, the Christie administration has been appointing council members that are avowed opponents of the Highlands Act, most recently this week with the nomination -- and confirmation by the state Senate -- of Richard Vohden, a Sussex County freeholder who filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the law.
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64 percent
Officials continually bemoan the fact that few people vote in elections -- and that's true -- but the key problem may be that so few citizens have registered to vote. According to the U.S Census, only 63.9 percent of adult New Jersey citizens were registered to vote in 2010, while 41.7 percent actually went to the polls. Although the percentage of registered citizens was about the same as nationally (65.1 percent), the actual total of eligible citizens who voted was below the national average of 45.5 percent.
In general, the older you are in New Jersey and nationally, the more likely you are to be both registered and vote. For instance, citizens below the age of 25 not only don't vote but they also don't register. Only 16.7 of eligible voters from 18 to 24 went to the polls and 44 percent were registered. Those just a bit older, between the ages of 25 to 44, were much more likely to be registered (62.5 percent), although only 32.5 percent of citizens voted. The only cohort that saw a majority of its citizens actually vote were those above the age of 65. About 56 percent of those between the ages of 65 to 75 voted, while 60 percent of citizens older than 75 went to the polls. That leave the middle aged, which was the largest cohort of voters in New Jersey. Although only 48.5 percent actually voted, they cast the largest number of votes (more than 1 million.)
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50,000
New Jersey imported nearly 50,000 pints of blood in 2010, and for the past 16 years has used more blood than it collects, according to the state Department of Health and Senior Services.
Indeed, due to New Jersey's chronic blood shortage, hospitals typically have less than a two-day supply of blood on hand. Only 3.6 percent of the state's adults donate blood each year, while 60 percent are eligible to do so, according to state Health Commissioner Mary E. O'Dowd. With one pint of blood able to save three lives, and 90 percent of the population needing blood at some point in their lives, officials are urging the public to donate. Learn more about how to donate blood or organize a blood drive.
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1
Intuitively, it was already clear, but the numbers confirm it: 2011 was the wettest year on record in New Jersey. With 64.87 inches of precipitation, it easily beat the previous record holder, 1996, with 59.98 inches of precipitation. August's storms, which resulted in 17.22 inches of rain, contributed mightily to the total, since it was the wettest of any month on record. But all but three months in 2011 were above average in precipitation.
Not only was 2011 wet, but it was also hot. December marked the 11th consecutive month with above-average temperatures and was the 5th warmest December since 1895. The year’s average 55.2 degrees was the third-warmest year on record, a complete 3 degrees above the 1895-2010 average, and even 2 degrees above years 1981-2010.
When considering this weather record, it’s also interesting to note that New Jersey experienced one of the earliest severe snowstorm on October 29 and one of the snowiest Januaries on record.
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20
A total of 20 lucky taverns in the northern part of the state will soon be able to sell off-track racing bets through electronic waging terminals, after a bill was approved by committees of both the state Assembly and Senate.
The bill, which will be voted on by the entire legislature on Monday, calls for a three-year pilot program offering horse-betting licenses to bars in 12 northern counties. They include Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Passaic, Union, Morris, Somerset, Warren, Sussex, Hunterdon, and northern Middlesex and Ocean counties. Host municipalities will get a 1 percent cut of every wager.
The bill, which was sponsored by state Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) and John Burzichelli, (D-Gloucester), Ralph Caputo (D-Essex), and Connie Wagner (D-Bergen), is designed to recoup some of the lost betting revenue that's been siphoned off to neighboring states. It is expected to pass without Republican opposition. The bill calls for the New Jersey Racing Commission to regulate the program and award the licenses. According to the bill, the pilot program would be subject to review after three years but every license would be reviewed on an annual basis.
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$6.1 billion
The HealthCare Institute of New Jersey says that its members -- which include life sciences companies such as pharmaceuticals, bio-techs and medical device manufacturers -- contributed at least $6.1 billion in research and development spending in 2011, an increase of 11.4 percent over 2010.
HINJ officials say the growth bodes well for future economic activity in the state by the sector. HINJ also points to a 49.1 percent increase in medical device trials and expansion of some life-science companies in New Jersey as further evidence of the industry's robustness in the region.
Although reported economic activity dropped significantly overall, there were fewer companies responding to the group's annual survey. Dean J. Paranicas, HINJ's president and chief executive officer, said that when comparing responses from 16 companies that reported on their economic activity in both 2010 and 2011, the results were fairly constant when it came to employment and economic impact. However, they reported an increase in charitable donations to New Jersey of 8.1 percent and a rise in global research and development spending.
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26,730
There are 26,730 schoolchildren enrolled in 80 charter schools in New Jersey, a 16.7 percent increase over last year, according to the New Jersey Charter Schools Association. Overall, New Jersey has about 1.35 million children enrolled in public schools, so kids attending charters make up less than 2 percent of the school population.
The New Jersey Charter Schools Association says the growth in charter school attendance was fueled by the opening of eight new charters, in addition to the expansion of 47 existing ones. According to the association, there are about 20,000 children on various waitlists to attend a charter school.
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61.6 percent
The turn of a New Year traditionally calls for resolutions, the most frequent being a vow to lose weight. No wonder, since 61.6 percent of New Jersey adults are classified as overweight or obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and statehealthfacts.org, a health website funded by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Obesity accounts for 24.8 percent of the state population, while those overweight represent 36.8 percent.
Men are more likely to be fat than women (70 percent vs. 53 percent), and Hispanics and African-Americans are more likely to be obese (68.2 percent) than whites (60.9 percent) or Asian-Americans (43.8 percent).
The number of overweight New Jerseyans has steadily increased over time, just like their weight. Although there may be a myriad of reasons for this, one may be that by many accounts, most people will abandon their resolutions before the month is out.
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125,000
New Jersey schoolchildren have sent more than 125,000 holiday cards and letters to U.S. military personnel. The project was part of Gov. Chris Christie's "Season of Service" and was jointly run by the state Department of Education and the Department of Military and Veteran Affairs. Servicemen and schoolchildren have been participating in ceremonies across the state, where the letters are delivered to the military.
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5.5 percent
It's time to wish a Happy Hanukkah to New Jersey's Jews, who are estimated to be 5.5 percent of the population. Jews celebrated the first night of the Festival of Lights at sundown yesterday, and the holiday will last until December 28.
The estimated 480,000 New Jersey Jews is just that -- an estimate -- because the U.S. Census is prohibited from asking questions about religious affiliation of any kind. Nevertheless, Jewish organizations believe that New Jersey has the fourth-largest Jewish community in the United States, after New York, California, and Florida, in that order.
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10
'Tis the season for giving, and New Jersey's Division of Consumer Affairs wants to help citizens know where to give. The division keeps a bimonthly tally of the top 10 "most inquired about" charities and is providing basic financial information about them.
The charities are based on calls to the division's hotline, which division director Thomas Calcagini says may indicate that the charity has been conducting a campaign drive. The financial information provided is derived from annual registration data provided to the state, and outlines how much the charity spends on actual program expenses vs. administration or fundraising.
Those differences can be significant. For instance, this month the NJ Police Officers Foundation is listed. That organization spends 87 percent of every dollar on fundraising, 2 percent on administration, and only 11 percent on fundraising. Smiletrain, which repairs cleft lips and palates for children worldwide, spends only 22 percent on fundraising and administration and 78 percent on the program itself.
Information on all charities registered in New Jersey is available online.
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102
More than 102 pairs of bald eagles are now nesting in the Garden State, which the state Department of Environmental Protection boasts as a significant milestone in environmental restoration and species management.
In the early 1980's, DEP officials could identify only one nesting bald eagle pair in an isolated swamp in southern New Jersey. Now, DEP officials have counted 102 active pairs, plus 11 more pairs in the process of establishing nesting territories. This year's survey documented a record 22 new nests, of which 16 are in southern Jersey, four in northern Jersey, and two in central Jersey. The Delaware Bay region of Cumberland and Salem counties is the state's stronghold, with 60 percent of the state's eagles nests. Eighteen of New Jersey's 21 counties have at least one active nest.
This year, the Endangered and Nongame Species Program fitted a pair of eagle chicks that hatched at the Merrill Creek Reservoir in central Warren County with solar-powered transmitters that allow tracking of the birds' movements by satellite. Unfortunately, the female chick has since died of starvation and West Nile Virus. But to see how far the eagles travel, and to follow the movements of the male bird, the public can visit the reservoir's website. A full report on the project, as a well as a map of the nest locations also is available online.
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3
Third grade is the critical year when it comes to academic success, according to Kids Count, the Advocates for Children of New Jersey. If a child is not reading proficiently by 3rd grade, according to Ceclia Zalkind, executive director of ACNJ, it will take them years to catch up. "Third grade is when children must start reading to learn, rather than learning to read. Without strong early literacy, their chances of school success drop dramatically." The children who are not proficient readers by the third grade are four more times likely than their peers to drop out of high school.
Overall, 60 percent of New Jersey's children can read proficiently by this critical year. But performance varies among counties and socioeconomic status. About 79 percent of children from high-income families meet the milestone, while only 43 percent low-income children do. According to Newark Kids Count, 38 percent of Newark's third graders attending traditional public schools read proficiently, while 44 percent of charter school students passed. Check online to see how kids in your county performed.
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39
New Jersey spends nearly $300 million on economic development incentive programs annually, but it gets far too little for its money, according to Good Jobs First, a national watchdog group that looks at the results of economic development subsidies. The organization gave the state 39 points out of 100 and ranked it 24th in the country for performance and job-quality results for its five state economic development programs.
The Business Employment Incentive Program, which primarily benefits the state's largest employers and cost $106 million in 2010 got the best rating of 63, because it includes job creation, wage standards, and health insurance in order to get a subsidy. The worst rating of the five went to the $132 million Urban Enterprise Zone program, because it had no requirements for wages or healthcare.
New Jersey Policy Perspective issued a statement as a result of the report, chastising the state for not being more performance-oriented in its approach to providing subsidies. "Over the past two years, New Jersey has thrown subsidies at companies, but the plan hasn't succeeded in creating many new jobs. As a result, our state is lagging behind the rest of the country," NJPP president Deborah Howlett said. "We need to hold these programs to a higher standard to help ensure subsidy programs actually do what they are designed to do: create jobs and improve our state economy."
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4,700
There are 4,700 New Jerseyans who are on a waiting list to receive an organ transplant, according to the NJ Sharing Network. Yet just one donor can save up to eight lives.
The state is urging residents to register as organ donors with the Motor Vehicle Commission and to communicate that decision to loved ones. About 32 percent of New Jersey residents have registered as organ donors, but he state is urging for greater participation in the program.
Although the shortage of donors affects people of all ethnic backgrounds, the need is greatest among blacks and Hispanics because they have higher rates of hypertension, diabetes, and obesity -- diseases that often require transplants.
More details on how to become an organ donor are available online.
