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(upbeat music) - From NJ PBS Studios, this is NJ Spotlight News with Brianna Vannozzi.

- Hello and thanks for joining us.

I'm Brianna Vannozzi.

On this edition of NJ Spotlight News, Joanna Gagas and I take a look at recent conversations we've had on issues that are impacting residents in our state and nation.

Take a look.

A new push in Trenton could change how legal defense works across New Jersey.

Lawmakers are considering a bill that would expand what's known as a holistic defense model, giving people facing charges access not just to an attorney, but to social workers and support services to help with challenges like housing, employment, and treatment.

Proponents say results from a pilot program in Atlantic, Hudson, and Monmouth counties show more people getting that help and far fewer returning to the justice system.

Joining me now to talk about how this model has worked so far and why she'd like to see it expanded statewide is New Jersey Public Defender Jennifer Salitti.

Jennifer, welcome.

Thanks for coming on the show.

For folks who may be hearing the term, you know, holistic defense for the first time, can you explain what that looks like in practice when a defendant walks into a public defender's office?

Sure, and thank you so much for having me.

So what holistic defense means really is an opportunity for people to come to us and not only get their legal case resolved, but also to get assistance with the things that brought them into the system in the first place.

Things like housing, job placement, connections to other services that can support them.

And what holistic defense really does is not only improve the lives of our clients, it helps maximize efficiencies within the system.

It helps us resolve cases even faster and more expeditiously, which would reduce demands on the system.

And it saves costly dollars that we might not need to spend in sending people to state prison.

You know, I was taking a look at some of those results that your office provided on that pilot program.

We're talking about 98 percent of participants remaining arrest free.

I mean, it almost sounds too good to be true.

What are you measuring there and over what period of time?

So when we talk about the 98 percent, we are measuring a group that were part of our parole revocation and resentencing unit who we were tracking their progress upon receiving holistic defense services.

And so far, 98 percent of those have remained arrest free.

We're also seeing a lot stronger connections to services in our pilot counties.

For example, we're seeing one hundred and forty two service connections made in twenty twenty four in our three pilot counties as opposed to seven hundred and seventy three.

That's over a four hundred and fifty, almost four hundred and fifty percent increase in the amount of people who are receiving services.

And we're seeing people having a 70 percent greater success on pretrial release in our pilot counties and people getting help with all sorts of things like housing, job services, mental health and substance use treatment across the board.

So all of those things are helping our clients lead stronger lives and repair some of the things that brought them into the system in the first place upon leaving an interaction with our office.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's what stood out the most in looking through that is just how severe the needs were.

What is those results?

What is the pilot program itself?

Tell us about in terms of the people who are moving through the criminal court system in New Jersey.

I think it tells us with what instinctively we already know that very often the drivers of criminal behavior or the drivers that bring people into our system involve things like income instability, housing instability, substance use and mental health issues.

So we are seeing about 40% of our clients are unhoused, about 60% have mental health diagnoses, and about 80% of the people that were in need of a job were getting jobs in this program.

So those are the kinds of issues people are coming to us with.

And just this one year pilot has proven that if we help people address those kinds of things, that they're not coming back into the system at the same rate.

So I do think in some ways, it's things that we've been talking about for a very long time.

We've been talking about these things forever, but now is the time for action, because I think we have found a way here in New Jersey that we can address these problems.

- Yeah, this expansion though, I mean, I don't have to tell you is being proposed at a time when lawmakers are debating spending cuts, affordability concerns, how do you convince them and taxpayers that it's worth funding this program and what's the price tag?

- So I think the main thing to remember here is that doing nothing is not free.

We spend $75,000 per year every time we send somebody to prison.

And a lot of people don't need to be there if they can get the support they need and be successful on probation or some sort of alternative to incarceration.

So the way we look at this is that we are saving incarceration costs of about $75,000 per person per year, and repeat system involvement is really expensive for everybody.

So this program is going to help us defer people out of the system and to get their lives back on track in a way that allows them not only to contribute more meaningfully to society and not come back to us, but also save us a ton of money in incarceration costs that we don't need.

Is there a rough estimate though, annually, in order to support that type of workload?

Do we have a rough estimate of what it'll cost?

It's still very early in the process, and as this bill winds its way through the legislature and we take a look at it and we see what final iteration of the bill may pass, I think we'll be able to put numbers to it.

But what I can very confidently say is that it costs a lot more to do nothing than it does to fund a bill like this.

- It's largely what I'm hearing, Jennifer, you know, a public safety argument that's being made that addressing instability early on can prevent future arrests and arrests from there.

Do you see, though, the state moving away from a punishment-centered model of justice?

I do.

You know, I have long said that public defense is public safety, that if we do the things that we know will work, we do the things that we will know deter people from the criminal justice system, we will be a safer community.

So to me, this is a win-win.

We can help people rebuild their lives and also lower the costs of things like incarceration and repeat people coming back into the legal system.

And I do think that that's a trend here in New Jersey.

We look at what our Department of Correction has done to decrease recidivism rates on the backend, what our court system is doing with all sorts of programs aimed at really addressing the root causes of crime.

So this is just another way.

I think one of the great things about this program is that it happens on day one.

We are able to intervene with this assistance on the day, often within 48 hours or within the first couple of weeks of somebody being arrested.

And that public defenders are in the best position to do this because our specialists enjoy a confidential relationship with a client who can trust us, who can tell us what's really going on in their lives, even if it's not evident from the case itself.

And we can connect them to support early on and allow them to demonstrate pre-trial that they can be successful if the proper support is in place.

- That's New Jersey public defender, Jennifer Saliti.

Jennifer, thanks so much for coming on and explaining that with us.

We appreciate your time.

- Thank you for having me.

- The Kids Count report is out.

It's an annual update from the nonpartisan group Advocates for Children of New Jersey that looks at how kids are doing across all 21 counties.

They measure it across a range of demographics looking at economic security, health, education, and many other measures.

There is some good news.

Some areas are showing improvements, but others are not.

The report highlights some serious concerns, what the authors call a shadow pandemic.

Mary Coogan is president and CEO of Advocates for Children of New Jersey, called ACNJ.

She joins us now to discuss the findings.

Mary, so good to have you with us.

Let's start with the good news.

What are some of the things that are going right here in New Jersey?

So what's going right?

So median income is up for most families.

You see unemployment has just gone up a little bit.

But economically people seem to be pretty steady.

Even though we have concerned about people and the number of people enrolled in New Jersey family care which is our public health insurance system.

It's just back to what it was pre pandemic.

So although there's been 100000 children disenrolled or have left family care over the past two years some of that could be because people are back to work and they're now on their parents insurance right or some of them because they're back to work they no longer meet the income eligibility.

But I think we're more concerned about the drop off because in certain counties the uninsured rate is starting to creep up.

Yes.

Across the state the uninsured rate is about 4 percent which is held steady.

Right.

But let's point out Union is 8 percent.

Essex is 6 percent.

Hudson and Mercer are both 5 percent.

So do you have an indication as to the why there.

This is just anecdotal at this point.

But those are also counties where you have higher immigrant populations.

And there is some concern that because of what's going on from the federal government that people who might have an undocumented person living in their household, even while the child might be eligible for family care, they are withdrawing from public programs.

But even for New Jersey for family care, a child, even if they're undocumented, they can still enroll in family care.

It's covered by state dollars as long as the family household meets the income eligibility requirements.

So we shouldn't be seeing those kids drop out, but I think we're hearing that they are.

We talk a lot about the impact of being uninsured or underinsured on adults.

We don't often talk about it for kids.

What is the impact if they don't have that insurance.

People don't get the preventive care.

And when they don't get the preventive care or they don't go to the dentist for the regular checkup and family care covers dental care and a lot of people don't realize that.

So kids might be in pain going to school or they might have be sick or have a cold and a parent because they don't have insurance just waits a little bit longer a little bit longer or a child may suffer from asthma and they don't get their inhaler renewed or they just kind of wait with a cold.

They wait without the preventive and what happens is it becomes more expensive but then the child could get sicker.

You looked at academics and there are some positives right.

The state invested in early pre-K education expanding that throughout the state.

But then you also look at achievement scores and help us understand what this shadow pandemic is that the report talks about.

So it's a couple of things.

The preschool the number of kids enrolled in preschool school is over sixty five thousand kids on an annual basis which is wonderful.

And Governor Murphy should be applauded for expanding preschool to as many counties as he as he could.

I think what we're seeing as a result of that though is there were community pre community child care providers who sometimes could partner with the pre preschool program in the school district and that partnership is not being developed.

And so the preschool expansion which naturally if I can send my child to a free preschool program I'm going to do that is starting to have a negative impact on the community provider.

So we're hoping that more school districts and community providers will partner that will also give parents more choice.

So if my child's been in a certain child care center and I want my child to now stay in that community provider for preschool I should be able to do that.

We want to see that.

I think with the the other thing that we're seeing with the school like the older kids we're seeing more chronic absenteeism and chronic absenteeism is where a child misses 18 days of school or 10 percent of school.

So according to the data we did collect from the Department of Education this year probably six in 10 schools have a chronic absenteeism problem.

Kids are hesitant.

They're overly anxious.

They're not wanting to go to school.

It could be for a variety of things which could be the result of the pandemic and sort of being isolated.

It could be the result of bullying or kids having behavior problems but chronic health issues as well.

Sure.

Absolutely.

And but if they're not in school they're not going to learn.

And while we're seeing the you know reading at grade level by third grade or eighth grade it's starting to creep up.

It's not at all where it should be.

Is it true that still half of all third graders are not proficient in math and language.

Yes.

Language arts.

Right.

And if you're if you're not reading by third grade you're always going to be behind.

Right.

Because at that point you used you learn to read and then you read to learn.

Exactly.

Maternal health still a challenge.

We know this is something that First Lady Tammy Murphy made a significant priority during her administration.

But we're just still not there yet.

One of the disparities as we see them laid out in the report.

So I agree with you.

The nurture and J campaign brought the needed attention to the disparities.

We are still seeing twice as many African-American moms not getting the prenatal care that we want them to get.

We are also seeing twice as many black babies being born prematurely or at low birth weight than their white peers.

And we're seeing, unfortunately, infant mortality is for black infants, which is meaning dying before age of one.

It's, I want to say, over twice the state average.

So all of that says the attention has been raised.

We've seen an increase in doulas, which can help moms.

I think it's gone from like 80 to almost 200 doulas now, who can help pregnant moms advocate for them, right, or if they feel like they're not being listened to by their doctor or at the hospital.

And all that's wonderful, but the disparities is really making us at ACNJ start to think we need to be in the community talking to moms and figuring out what's causing it, but maybe we need to be looking at overall health.

Because having a baby takes a toll on your health anyway, and maybe if women were healthier when they became pregnant, you wouldn't see so many problems.

And we know too often women care for others, take care of themselves last.

It's a chronic problem that exists.

But all good data, and certainly for you and your team, a whole lot more to kind of process in terms of understanding what to do about it, right?

We're trying.

All right.

We got to leave it there.

Mary Coogan, President and CEO of Advocates for Children of New Jersey.

Thank you.

- After an unusually warm start to April, the temperature dropped and the freezing temperatures delivered a devastating blow to farms across New Jersey, wiping out peach, cherry, and apple crops in many parts of the state.

Farmers are calling the damage catastrophic, with some orchards facing a full season with absolutely no revenue from their produce, even as the cost of running their farms continues to go up.

I'm joined now by a farmer who can share his personal experience, Dr.

Louis DiEugenio, President of Summit City Farms and Winery in Glassboro, and Ashley Kerr, who's the State Policy Director at the New Jersey Farm Bureau.

Dr.

Lew, Ashley, thank you so much for taking some time to talk to us.

Dr.

Lew, I want to start with you.

You have a 100-year-old family farm.

Can you just tell us what happened with the weather?

Kind of succinctly, what changes did you see that impacted your farm?

Well, it got very cold and we are specialty growers, if you will.

We grow peaches, nectarines and apples.

And we were at a stage where we had small fruits.

So fruitless actually on the tree and Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, April 21st, 2026.

And I have very detailed information in my mind because we're out doing mitigation with wind machines.

But succinctly it got too cold.

Thirty degrees Fahrenheit is probably the lowest temperature we could tolerate in our fields.

And we have eight separate farms scattered around a mile or two.

We got to 20.

Dr.

Lou it got it got too cold after it was very warm.

Is that right?

And so all of the bloom started to bloom.

All the flowers start to bloom.

Yeah that's the point.

You know a peach tree starts and makes bloom.

And that was literally before the 22nd.

That was literally two to three weeks ahead of that.

You know we had a kind of a prolonged bloom time due to that warm weather it pushed fruit along.

That's exactly right.

What are you growing on your farm?

Peaches, nectarines and some certified organic apples.

Ashley, how does what happened, you know, this early bloom and then as Dr.

Liu was just saying it got below that 32 degree threshold.

What impact are we seeing on farms across New Jersey?

We're seeing a devastating loss on farms across the whole state.

And like you said, because the weather got very warm, all the fruit trees bloomed early and then the freezing weather caused the fruit to die.

So we're seeing in some cases 100% loss, a lot of places 75% loss of apples, peaches, nectarines, cherries, wine grapes, not as bad but some loss with strawberries, blueberries, and sometimes in the past we've seen this in different pockets throughout the state, but we've never seen it so catastrophic statewide.

How many farms at this point are still waiting to see if they have any salvageable crops or is it too late?

Do we already know?

It's going to take some time to see if there's anything that can be saved.

Potentially there's going to be late blooms in some places.

What we're also telling people though is farms are still open for business.

Vegetables will be there.

Events will go on.

It's more important now more than ever to go and support your farms while they're hurting through this.

The wine grapes may see a second bloom.

It won't be.

It'll be substantially less than what they would have gotten to start.

But we're hopeful for something.

But it's going to it's a devastating loss this year.

And just quickly when you say second bloom in other words there are two times throughout this spring season that farmers generally see their their flowers bloom to turn into crops.

It depends on the crops.

With the wine grapes, there can be a second bloom.

With the peaches and apples, Dr.

Liu would be able to talk to that more.

And I don't believe that's a second bloom, but just seeing as time goes on, if some of the crop made it.

- Dr.

Liu, are you confident that none of your crop can be salvaged?

- Yeah, absolutely.

Unfortunately, we've been dealing with frost events for many, many years.

And this is the most devastating, as Ashley stated, event I've ever seen in the history of our farm.

We've never experienced anything like this and sadly all of our colleagues and neighbors are in the same boat.

You know, again, when we got below 30, we were at 28, 27, 26.

These fruitlets within six hours, you know, we're expert at looking at frost exposed fruitlets and we could tell they were done.

You know, we do not have any pizzas or apples on our farm.

What is the financial impact for you and others like you when a crop is completely wiped out like this?

We have zero income.

Our operation imagine running a business with zero income for a whole year.

It's like getting no no pay for a whole year in any in any job.

And so when it comes to farmers especially seasonal farmers you essentially bank the year's profits on how your particular crop does and and it really depends on the spring weather.

Yes.

Absolutely.

That's agriculture.

It's gambling at the greatest.

It's like in the song Outcast.

You can plan a pretty picnic but you can't predict the weather.

How do you Dr.

Liu try to mitigate for things like this?

Because certainly I know that there are steps you can take if you see that the weather is not cooperating as you'd like it to go.

Of course in this case it didn't work.

But what type of mitigation efforts are available to you?

There are some techniques developed some years ago to delay bloom in the spring.

Even a delay of three or four or five days can salvage a crop.

And our hundred years it has until this year.

And then more immediately we have wind machines.

These are large 16 foot props, 32 feet in the air positioned like a helicopter blade, positioned horizontally that spin around every four and a half minutes and take the warm air from up above and try to mix it with the cold air down below.

We have seven of them and they were running full out four times this spring.

The final devastating night was the night of Tuesday into Wednesday, April 22nd, when it simply got too cold, despite the machines.

Ashley, I want to jump in here with you.

There are efforts that some farms can take to get some type of relief, whether it be federal, perhaps from insurance.

Can you just kind of help us explain what those avenues are?

The USDA Farm Service Agency offers crop insurance.

Unfortunately, all of our farmers do not have crop insurance, but a decent amount of them do.

This will not make them whole, but will give them some type of payment.

The federal government can also issue a disaster declaration because of the weather after a series of meetings and data gathering.

So what we are asking all of our growers to do is to definitely document their losses, provide that to the USDA Farm Service Agency, and also to Rucker's Cooperative Extension, who is our land grant university and boots on the ground helping the farmers in the state.

We are hearing estimates of potentially $100 million in loss here.

In the past in New Jersey, from devastating weather events in 1999, during Kristy Whitman's term as governor, there was a really dry summer with a bad drought.

And after that, the state was able to do an emergency appropriation of $30 million just to help the farmers get through that season.

We are definitely going to need to go to the state for help again this year, and probably a lot more than that.

And of course, this comes at a time when the state budget is very, very tight already.

And Dr.

Lewitt also comes at a time when costs are inflated because of the conflict in Iran.

Can you just tell us what costs you're paying higher right now because of that conflict overseas?

Well, everything we're paying these days is higher.

Fertilizer is yet to be spread.

Mind you, with these fruit crops, we can't walk away from them.

It's not like a vegetable crop will just come in and replant and we'll have a month or two later crop.

We have to take care of these crops.

So we're still spraying.

We still need to apply fertilizer and reduce dosages.

And all of our inputs are increased, fertilizer particularly, but all of our inputs are increased.

I just wanted to add that the American Farm Bureau Federation recently did a survey on the fertilizer and fuel costs across the nation.

There's been a 30 percent increase in fuel and fertilizer.

Ninety percent of farmers are saying that their situation is worse now than it was before.

In New Jersey, 75 percent of farmers need to cut back on their fuel and fertilizer this year because of the increased costs.

I know this is a hard time to be, certainly a hard time to be in the farming industry, but thank you both for your insight and for the work that you do out there every day.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

That's going to do it for us.

I'm Brianna Vannozzi for the entire NJ Spotlight News Team.

Thanks for being with us.

We'll see you next time.

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