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- As the Board of Education prepares to meet tomorrow night to adopt a budget, some board members are calling for givebacks from the teachers union. Board member and former mayor Gerald McCann wants the 3,500 members of the union to go without raises to avoid layoffs. McCann says the district is also considering laying off nearly 200 employees, but board member Sue Mack says she’d like to avoid layoffs by curtailing new hires.

- Cops say that the recent spate of gunfire in a small area of Greenville appears to be gang-related. “There seems to be some infighting going on within a couple of the gangs and there might be power struggles,” JCPD chief Tom Comey says. Meanwhile, some local merchants and residents say they are fed up with the violence.

- At-Large council candidate Joseph Cassidy was once again rebuffed by the courts yesterday in his quest to remove Mayor Healy from the May 12 ballot. Agreeing with a Hudson County Superior Court judge’s ruling on Monday, an appellate panel sitting in Hackensack denied Cassidy’s motion to keep Healy off the ballot because of his Bradley Beach arrest.

- “The DEP has lost the trust of the people of this city,” the Journal editorializes on the PPG settlement. The paper rightly notes that the state environmental agency dragged its feet after the 1990 court order for PPG to clean up the chromium-contaminated Garfield Avenue site, and calls for a step that we’ve been hearing a number of advocates call for as well. “Before the City Council rubber stamps the agreement perhaps federal intervention is needed to review the cleanup plan or, at a minimum, have the state Public Advocate look into it.”

- A JC man has pleaded guilty in a scheme that netted more than $573,000 through fraudulent applications for Homestead Rebate checks.

- The “Partnerships for Progress” Technical Workshop on Grant Preparation, aimed at specific Jersey City nonprofits interested in receiving federal stimulus grants, will be tomorrow, April 2, from 9 am-12 pm in the City Council Chambers at City Hall (280 Grove St.)

- Two students and one faculty member from Saint Peter’s College joined with members of Witness Against Torture and stood vigil in front of the White House for two hours every day during their spring break.

- The Daily News reports on how the Beacon’s developers shifted gears as the economy soured. They were scheduled to begin restoring a 13-floor building in the former Jersey City Medical Center complex, which was slated for 103 condo units. Instead, they decided to make the building “raw lofts” and now have only 26 units to unload rather than 103.

In statewide news:

- In both the public and private sectors, employers around the state are increasingly turning to unpaid furloughs as an alternative to layoffs.

- Senior and disabled residents who qualify for a 2007 property tax reimbursement because of the recent increase in income limits for the Senior Freeze (Property Tax Reimbursement) Program now have until June 1 to file applications. The original deadline for the newly eligible applicants to file their 2007 applications was March 31.

- The Tri-State Transportation Campaign has released an independent analysis of the NJ Turnpike Interchange 6-9 widening that finds that the $2.7 billion project is unnecessary and the same congestion relief can be achieved by other, less expensive and environmentally threatening, methods.

- Former Gov. Tom Kean says he is so angry about Gov. Corzine’s plan to cut arts funding that he is considering filing a lawsuit against Corzine.