FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Anthony Puglisi

December 3, 2012 973-621-2542

Lauren Shears

973-621-1590

ESSEX COUNTY EXECUTIVE DIVINCENZO ANNOUNCES

EMERGENCY GRANT FUNDS WILL CREATE 105 TEMPORARY JOBS

TO ASSIST WITH AFTERMATH OF HURRICANE SANDY

Grant will Subsidize Temporary Employment for Cleanup, Repair and Relief Work

Essex County, NJ – Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo, Jr. announced on Monday, December 3rd that grant money from the Essex County Department of Economic Development, Training and Employment has been awarded to municipalities and government agencies to create temporary jobs to assist with clean up from Hurricane Sandy or to help with humanitarian assistance for victims. Grants have been awarded to Belleville, Bloomfield, Caldwell, Fairfield, Irvington, Livingston, Nutley, East Orange, Orange the East Orange Water Commission and Essex County Government. The Essex County DEDTE received a $420,957 grant from the Federal Hurricane Sandy Disaster National Emergency Grant that was allocated through the NJ Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

“Hurricane Sandy was one of the most devastating natural disasters to hit Essex County in our lifetime. The destruction can be seen throughout our neighborhoods, in our parks and through our business community and cannot be easily reversed,” DiVincenzo said. “This emergency grant funding will create much-needed temporary jobs to help with cleanup efforts and relief work. We are pleased that during these difficult economic times we have the ability to utilize these grant funds to employ people and have them engaged on projects that will help stabilize our neighborhoods,” he pointed out.

“Before Hurricane Sandy’s surge receded from the Jersey Shore, my staff was busy at work obtaining the $15.6 million National Emergency Grant that brings us together today. The intent of the funding is to allow government agencies to hire unemployed people to help the state, counties and towns in their clean-up efforts,” said NJ Department of Labor and Workforce Development Commissioner Harold J. Wirths. “Through the grant, we’ve already put nearly 100 people to work on the recovery effort and we have government agencies requesting to put another 1,300 workers on the streets in 16 counties. We are prepared to secure additional federal funding if needed to get the job done,” he added.

“There is a saying that after a disaster you can rebuild,” NJ State Senator Nia Gill said. “These grants for temporary jobs are the first major step to rebuild our communities. However tragic the storm and its effects were, this is something positive,” she said.

“Many towns in Essex County are still dealing with the cleanup from Hurricane Sandy,” Essex County Department of Economic Development, Training and Employment Director Anibal Ramos said. “This program will create vital employment opportunities for New Jersey residents and help municipal leaders handle the ongoing needs in their respective communities,” he added.

The grant can be utilized to provide temporary employment for individuals working on projects for the cleanup, demolition, repair, renovation and reconstruction of damaged public structures, facilities and lands. Temporary jobs may also be created for those working on projects that provide food, clothing, shelter and other humanitarian assistance for disaster victims. Because of ongoing needs associated with the hurricane, the following 11 municipalities and government agencies, and the number of jobs being created, are: Belleville (6), Bloomfield (10), Caldwell (2), Fairfield (4), Irvington (7), Livingston (3), Nutley (3), East Orange (15), East Orange Water Commission (20), Orange (6) and the County of Essex (29). A total of 105 temporary jobs have been created with this funding. Individuals hired through the grant will start their jobs in early December.

“We still have a number of trees down that have to be removed, so the effects of Hurricane Sandy are still being felt in our community,” Irvington Mayor Wayne Smith said. “We salute the County Executive for getting Essex County a share of this grant money. Be assured that we will use it well to benefit the community,” he added.

“We are witnessing a historic relationship between Essex County and the municipalities,” Orange Mayor Dwayne Warren said. “As we look at our budget and wonder how we are going to clean up our towns, funds like this are critically important,” he pointed out.

“County Executive DiVincenzo has come through time and time again to help municipalities,” Nutley Commissioner Mauro Tucci said. “Nutley was hit hard – we had power outages, water main breaks and 70 large trees come down,” he noted.

Individuals eligible to participate in the National Emergency Grant Disaster projects must meet one of the following criteria:

· Workers who have been temporarily or permanently dislocated as a result of the natural disaster.

· Eligible dislocated workers as defined in WIA Section 101(9) who are unemployed and are not receiving unemployment compensation (UI) or other types of income support, including WorkFirst New Jersey.

· Eligible individuals are “long-termed unemployed as defined by the State,” meaning they have been unemployed for 13 of the last 26 weeks (the weeks do not have to be consecutive) and are not otherwise eligible in the first two categories.

Individuals receiving assistance cannot be employed for more than six (6) months or 1,040 hours. Participants must be paid the higher of Federal, State or local minimum wage or the comparable rates of pay for individuals employed in similar occupations. The maximum amount that can be earned by a participant is $12,000, excluding the cost of fringe benefits.

The City of Newark will be administering their own grant funding to create temporary jobs to assist with the clean up from Hurricane Sandy.