Murphy nixes $1.5M manufacturing workforce grant for NJMEP.

Byline: Daniel J. Munoz

Gov. Phil Murphy on Monday shot down a bill that would have set aside $1.5 million for workforce training grants to the New Jersey Manufacturing Extension Program, arguing that it could drain away money from much similar, direly needed programs across the state.

The proposed Senate Bill 1957 would have allocated $1.5 million out of the state Labor Department to the NJMEP, a non-profit that trains and connects the workforce within the state's manufacturing sector.

NJMEP said it would use the funds to help scale up operations at a South Jersey facility. It passed by a 34-0 Senate vote and a 72-0 Assembly vote in October, after coming out of the Legislative Manufacturing Caucus.

"[T]his bill does not establish a clear and sustainable funding mechanism to both support the $1.5 million annual award to the NJMEP and maintain the continued viability of the [Workforce Development Partnership Fund], which provides crucial funding for many of the State's job training efforts," the governor said in his veto statement.

The WDPF funds job-training efforts across the state, and Murphy cautioned that drawing that money out of the WDPF and toward the NJMEP would "hamper" the state Labor Department's ability to "effectively serve the priorities of the WDPF year to year."

Under the bill, the 37% of the money from the WDPF that goes toward another workforce training office - the Office of Customized Training - would go toward the NJMEP.

Murphy cautioned that the office has faced years of diversions and that the appropriation needs to be tucked into the annual budget process every year.

John Kennedy, the NJMEP's chief executive officer, called the veto...