Occupational Center worries about stretched state budgets

Eliot Caroom/New Jersey Local News Service. Cyndy Rintzler, vocational coordinator at the Occupational Center of Union County, tells worker Edipo DeSousa that he can start training to work a job in the community Tuesday. DeSousa worked for the ShopRite at the Occupational Center in Roselle for two years.

by Eliot Caroom/For The Star-Ledger
Tuesday April 07, 2009, 6:27 PM

The Occupational Center of Union County in Roselle celebrated its 50th anniversary Tuesday under the shadow of potentially devastating budget cuts. The center, which provides work opportunities to more than 350 disabled people, could lose up to 18 percent of its state funding, according to center President Mark Lasky.

Rahway Catholic churches bristle at shared administration

by Eliot Caroom/For The Star-Ledger
Wednesday April 01, 2009, 6:06 PM

Across the country Roman Catholic parishes are making do with less. In Rahway, budget cuts and less autonomy for parishes are deeply affecting a traditional faith community.

Parishioners at St. Mark’s Roman Catholic Church in Rahway met with a bishop on Tuesday night and complained about financial and spiritual problems arising from sharing a pastoral administrator with St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, around the corner, less than a quarter-mile away.