Dr. Pengju Zhang's Research Project on the American Rescue Plan Act in NJ to be Funded by the New Jersey State Policy Lab

Dr. Pengju Zhang, associate professor at the School of Public Affairs and Administration (SPAA) at Rutgers University–Newark, is leading one of eight new research projects recently announced by the New Jersey State Policy Lab. His project, "The American Rescue Plan Act and Local Governments in NJ: An Equity Perspective," with Michael Hayes (Rutgers-Camden), will examine how local governments have prioritized their expenditure needs and allocated funds from The American Rescue Plan Act which included approximately $3.6 billion in “COVID-19 Local Fiscal Recovery Funds” made available from the United States Department of the Treasury to each of New Jersey's 21 counties and 565 municipalities. This project also aims to evaluate whether and how the generous financial package of ARPA has affected fiscal disparities between high-income and low-income local jurisdictions in New Jersey.

About the New Jersey State Policy Lab
The New Jersey State Policy is celebrating its third anniversary. In 2021, Rutgers-Newark's School of Public Affairs and Administration (SPAA) partnered with Rutgers’ Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy in New Brunswick to establish a policy lab for the state of New Jersey via a $1 million award from the New Jersey Office of the Secretary of Higher Education. Charles Menifield and Gregory Porumbescu from Rutgers SPAA, and Stuart Shapiro and Andrea Hetling from Bloustein, are leading the initiative which looks to improve the quality of data and evidence used by state policy experts to implement policy and program improvements for New Jersey.