Funding for school-based youth services programs such as the Source at Red Bank Regional High won’t be eliminated after all, state Senator Vin Gopal said Thursday evening.
“Funding has been completely restored in the legislature’s budget and I expect the governor to sign it,” Gopal wrote on a Facebook chat group of Source supporters. “I just informed Superintendent [Lou] Moore so he can prepare.”
Governor Phil Murphy’s administration had planned to eliminate all $11 million in funding for programs in more than 100 school districts, including $277,000 to RBR.
That would have had “devastating consequences” for the Source, Moore said last month. Without it, “all of its free programming and services will simply NO LONGER EXIST,” Moore wrote in a message to the school community.
Supporters and former students said mental health counseling provided through the program had literally saved lives, while helping numerous other students overcome obstacles to completing their education.
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