Rutgers' main governing body on Thursday conditionally backed a revised state plan to overhaul New Jersey's higher education system that retains its academic and financial authority over all of its campuses.
The vote by the Board of Governors was 9-1, a decision expected to help ease passage of a university consolidation bill by the Legislature. Lawmakers were expected to vote later in the day on at least the proposed changes, if not the full measure.
Unlike earlier versions, the new merger bill lets Rutgers retain academic and financial authority over its Camden and Newark campuses, though the health sciences curriculum and projects at those campuses and Rowan University would fall under the oversight of a new board.
The legislation breaks up the University of Medicine and Dentistry, distributing it to Rutgers and Rowan, and creates a health sciences university in South Jersey.
In a statement after the vote, the board said getting a medical school would help elevate Rutgers to the ranks of the nation's top 25 research institutions.
The board held off giving final approval until it gets more information on costs and other aspects of the legislation. Rutgers will take on millions of dollars in debt when it absorbs the medical school.
Faculty members who have opposed the merger plan cautioned that the board, having not seen the revised legislation, was taking a leap of faith.
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Rutgers trustees, who serve on a separate board that is mainly advisory, are still divided and did not plan to vote Thursday, according to a person familiar with the revised legislation, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
A legal memo from legislative researchers concluded that the law establishing the state university is a contract between the boards and the state; changing the terms requires approval from the parties. That contradicted an earlier legal opinion that signoff from the trustees, who have vocally opposed the deal, was not required.
The trustees have retained a lawyer and are threatening to sue.
The deal calls for the state to continue to fund University Hospital, UMDNJ's money-losing teaching hospital in Newark and the state's largest provider of care for the uninsured poor, satisfying a major concern of lawmakers from Essex County.
The costs of the plan are unknown.
The 100-page legislation has changed often as it sped through the Legislature in about a week, skipping a hearing before the Assembly Higher Education panel though it is a major higher education bill.
Republican Gov. Chris Christie, a proponent of the restructuring, imposed a June 30 deadline for putting the framework in place. The actual plan would not be implemented until next year.
Democratic powerbroker George Norcross III is also a supporter.
Norcross is chairman of the board of Cooper University Hospital, which has partnered with Rowan on a new medical school. The bill gives UMDNJ's osteopathic school to Rowan, and designates the school a research university, which makes it eligible for more state and federal funding and gives it greater independence in awarding contracts.
