This week lawmakers agreed to set aside $100 million dollars to help fund renovations to Rutgers University’s basketball arena and build a multimillion dollar indoor football practice facility. According to reports from NJ Advance Media, another $150 million in state funding is being dedicated to Rutgers’ medical schools, along with $50 million to build a research complex in downtown New Brunswick. Reports say the Murphy administration brokered the deal after meeting with university officials during the final phase of budget negotiations. The decision is facing sharp criticism from some lawmakers who point to the hefty deficit the Rutgers Athletic Department ran up last year and recently raised tuition and student fees for next year.
Rutgers to get $300M in funding from proposed state budget
The decision is facing sharp criticism from some lawmakers
Anchor
An Emmy award-winning journalist, Briana Vannozzi serves as the anchor for NJ Spotlight News, the newsroom of NJ PBS. She's worked in several capacities since joining the news division in 2012, as interim anchor and senior correspondent after years of general assignment reporting as a multimedia journalist. Vannozzi began her television journalism career by cutting her teeth on New Jersey State House politics for New Jersey Network News, and later as a news radio correspondent at FM News 101.9 covering crime and politics in New York City. Her work has taken her to national presidential nominating conventions, Capitol Hill, up and down the East Coast and every corner of the Garden State. She's interviewed every New Jersey governor dating back to Jon Corzine and moderated numerous political debates and forums. Her work has also earned awards from the New Jersey Society of Professional Journalists and the Philadelphia Press Association. A Burlington County native, she's honored to be serving and covering her home state and raising her family there.