February 21, 2019 Edition
STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS
On March 7th, the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to consider SENATE, NO. 477 (Vitale D-19/Scutari D-22), which would eliminate the statute of limitations in certain civil actions for sexual abuse, expand the categories of defendants liable in such actions, and remove the safeguards provided local governing bodies under the New Jersey Tort Claims Act (TCA).
NJAC commends senators Vitale and Scutari for their efforts to provide the victims of sexual abuse with additional remedies against the person and entities guilty of committing such heinous crimes, and have requested the sponsors and Committee to consider the following recommendations: 1) eliminate the statute of limitations in civil actions against the perpetrators of sexual abuse; and, 2) extend the statute of limitations from 2 to 7 years in civil actions for sexual abuse filed against local governing bodies. NJAC submits that these recommendations would expand the ability of the victims of sexual abuse to pursue civil actions against the person that committed such terrible acts; and, would reasonably preserve the safeguards contemplated by the Tort Claims Act as local governing bodies defend all lawsuits with limited property taxpayer dollars. Along with the New Jersey State League of Municipalities (NJLM) and the New Jersey School Boards Association (NJSBA), NJAC has also requested the Office of Legislative Services (OLS) to conduct a Legislative Fiscal Estimate and that the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee consider the measure’s potential fiscal impact on local governing bodies across the State.
In summary, this legislation would eliminate the current two-year statute of limitations in civil actions for the sexual abuse of a child; the willful, wanton or grossly negligent act or omission of a sexual assault or other crimes of a sexual nature brought against a trustee, director, officer, employee, agent, servant or volunteer of a nonprofit corporation, society or association organized exclusively for religious, charitable or educational purposes; and, the sexual offense committed against a minor due to the negligent hiring, supervision or retention of an employee, agent or servant of a nonprofit corporation, society or association organized exclusively for religious, charitable, educational or hospital purposes. The bill would also expand the category of persons who are potentially liable in any civil action alleging the sexual abuse of a child to include any person who knowingly permitted or acquiesced in the sexual abuse would be civilly liable. Finally, the measure would eliminate the protections afforded local governing bodies under the “New Jersey Tort Claims Act,” and would further hold public entities liable in actions for damages alleging the sexual abuse of a child. The companion version ASSEMBLY, NO. 3648 (Quijano D-20/Vainieri Huttle D-37) is currently in the Assembly Judiciary Committee awaiting consideration.
SUBCONTRACTING AGREEMENTS
On February 14th, NJAC testified before the Assembly Labor Committee in opposition to ASSEMBLY, NO. 3395 (McGuckin R-10/Dancer R-12), which would prohibit public school districts and institutions of higher education from using subcontracting agreements that may affect employees in a collective bargaining unit under certain circumstances.
NJAC is primarily concerned with the long-term ramifications of this legislation as it would effectively prohibit the use of subcontracting agreements used by public school districts and institutions of higher education. Although the measure may not directly impact county governing bodies, it would essentially prevent the use of subcontracting agreements by county special services school districts and county colleges as freeholder boards provide substantial funding for county colleges and transportation services for county special services school districts.
As has been well documented, local governments across the State save valuable property taxpayer dollars, without impacting the level of service provided, by using subcontracting or privatization agreements for the delivery of food services, custodial services, transportation services, and much more. As counties, municipalities, and school districts continue struggling to make ends meet under a restrictive 2% cap on spending, the use of such agreements must remain a viable option for the delivery of services in a cost effective and efficient manner. The General Assembly is set vote on the A-3395 at its session on February 25th; and, the companion version SENATE, NO. 296 (Holzapfel R-10/Thompson R-12) is currently in the Senate Education Committee awaiting consideration.
PROPERTY TAX ASSESSMENT STUDY COMMISSION
On February 14th, the Assembly State and Local Government favorably reported and second referenced the Assembly Appropriations Committee ASSEMBLY, NO. 4826 (Mazzeo D-2), which would establish the “Property Tax Assessment Study Commission.”
In summary, the Commission would examine the State’s current real property tax assessment practices, which include the Gloucester County model under the “Property Tax Assessment Reform Act” and the Monmouth County model under “Real Property Assessment Demonstration Program.” The Commission would study, analyze, and consider all issues related to real property assessment in the State, which would include: the role of the county government in the real property assessment process; the use of technology in the assessment of real property and in the assessment appeal process; the means by which to improve the accuracy and reliability of real property assessments and the assessment appeal process, which would include whether to statutorily require that all real property assessments be maintained at no less than 100 percent of assessed to true value in every year; and, an analysis of the assessment practices in Gloucester and Monmouth counties.
The Commission would be required to issue a report of tis findings and recommendations to the Governor and the Legislature no later than 12 months after the Commission organizes and would include the following 9 members: the Director of the Division of Taxation in the Department of the Treasury; 4 members appointed by the Governor, which would a representative of NJAC, a representative of NJLM, a representative of the Gloucester County Board of Taxation, and a representative of the Monmouth County Board of Taxation; 2 public members appointed by the President of the Senate, one of whom shall have experience in the assessment of residential real property, either as a municipal assessor or as an employee of a revaluation company operating in the State; and 2 public members appointed by the Speaker of the General Assembly, one of whom shall have experience in the assessment of commercial real property, either as a municipal assessor or as an employee of a revaluation company operating in the State.
NJAC supports this legislation as the Association would play a pivotal role in selecting a member of the Commission; and, as county governments must play a growing role in providing services in a cost effective and efficient manner as the State only regional form of government. The companion version SENATE, NO. 3345 (Cryan D-20) is currently in the Senate Community and Urban Affairs Committee awaiting consideration.
PAID FAMILY LEAVE
On February 19th, Governor Phil Murphy signed into law ASSEMBLY, NO. 3957 (Quijano D-20/Giblin D-34)(Sweeney D-3/Diegnan D-18), which broadens the State’s paid family leave law. In summary, the new law expands Temporary Disability Insurance (TDI) and Family Leave Insurance (FLI) benefits, establishes new administrative requirements for the TDI and FLI programs, and increases TDI and FLI payroll taxes.
In summary, the new law requires that for leave periods beginning on or after July 1, 2020, the amount of weekly FLI and TDI benefits will increase from 2/3 of a claimant’s average weekly wage to 85% of that wage, subject to a maximum amount. The maximum will rise from 53% to 70% percent of the Statewide average weekly wage (SAWW) for all workers. Additionally, the maximum FLI benefit period will increase from 6 to 12 weeks during any 1-year period and the maximum intermittent FLI leave from 42 to 56 days. Moreover, the new law expands the family members for whose care individuals may receive FLI benefits during periods of leave from employment to siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, parents-in-law, and others related by blood or relationship equivalent to a family relationship; and, extends FLI benefits to individuals who take time off from work to assist a family member who is a victim of domestic or sexual violence.
The new law also facilitates access to FLI and TDI benefits by: 1) eliminating the 1week waiting period before the payment of FLI benefits; 2) effective as of June 30, 2019, lowering from 50 to 30 employees the threshold at and above which employers must grant unpaid family leave to employees for up to 12 weeks in a 24month period without terminating employment because of the leave; 3) no longer allowing employers to require that employees use all their paid leave, up to 2 weeks, before the payment of FLI benefits; and, 4) limiting to 2 weeks the amount of sick leave State and certain local government employees must use before receiving TDI benefits. Current law requires them to exhaust their entire sick leave first. The new law further increases the amount of payroll taxes that will be raised to pay for the benefit expansion and additional program administration expenditures; and, expands the wage base on which the taxes are imposed from 28 times to 107 times the SAWW. Employees will pay for the entire cost of the new law through increases in employee FLI and TDI wage tax assessments.
JOB APPLICANT WAGE AND SALARY EXPERIENCE
On February 14th, the Assembly Labor Committee favorably reported ASSEMBLY, NO. 1094 (Downey D-11/Lampitt D-6), which would prohibit employer inquiries about a worker’s wage and salary experience under certain circumstances.
In summary, this legislation would make it an unlawful employment practice for any employer to: to screen a job applicant based on the applicant’s salary history, including, but not limited to, the applicant’s prior wages, salaries or benefits; or, to require that the applicant’s salary history satisfy any minimum or maximum criteria. Under the bill, an employer may consider salary history in determining salary, benefits, and other compensation for the applicant, and may verify the applicant’s salary history, if an applicant voluntarily, without employer prompting or coercion, provides the employer with that salary history. An applicant’s refusal to volunteer compensation information would not be considered in any employment decisions. An employer may also request that an applicant provide the employer with a written authorization to confirm salary history, including, but not limited to, the applicant’s compensation and benefits, after an offer of employment, which offer includes an explanation of the overall compensation package, has been made to the applicant.
The legislation would not apply to: applications for an internal transfer or a promotion with an employee’s current employer, or use by the employer of previous knowledge obtained because of prior employment with the employer; any actions taken by an employer pursuant to any federal law or regulation that expressly requires the disclosure or verification of salary history for employment purposes, or requires knowledge of salary history to determine an employee’s compensation; and, any attempt by an employer to obtain, or verify a job applicant’s disclosure of, non-salary related information when conducting a background check on the job applicant, provided that, when requesting information for the background check, the employer shall specify that salary history information is not to be disclosed. If, notwithstanding that specification, salary history information is disclosed, the employer shall not retain that information or consider it when determining the salary, benefits, or other compensation of the applicant.
The legislation would further provide that employer inquiries regarding an applicant’s previous experience with incentive and commission plans and the terms and conditions of the plans, provided that the employer shall not seek or require the applicant to report information about the amount of earnings of the applicant in connection with the plans, and that the employer shall not make any inquiry regarding the applicant’s previous experience with incentive and commission plans unless the employment opening with the employer includes an incentive or commission component as part of the total compensation program. A-1094 is on Second Reading in the General Assembly; and, the Senate passed the companion version SENATE, NO. 559 (Gill D-34/Weinberg D37) on March 22, 2018.
PUBLIC WORKER PENSIONS ARE A HUGE COST FOR NJ: HERE’S WHAT PHIL MURPHY IS CONSIDERING TO PAY FOR THEM by Samantha Marcus, NJ Advance Media, February 19, 2019
Less than two years ago, state lawmakers pledged the New Jersey lottery as an asset to the public-worker pension fund, bringing some relief from its many billions of dollars in unfunded liabilities. Now, as proceeds from lottery ticket sales are deposited into the pension fund month after month, Gov. Phil Murphy wants to know what other assets belonging to the state — roads, airports, bridges and naming rights, among others — can be sold, leased or otherwise leveraged to help fund government workers’ pensions.
The state Treasury Department is soliciting bids from financial advisers to evaluate the many assets owned by the state, New Jersey Turnpike Authority, South Jersey Transportation Authority and NJ Transit and to recommend which have potential to improve the health of the pension system. “It’s widely acknowledged that New Jersey faces many fiscal challenges, which won’t be solved by any single magic bullet,” state Treasurer Elizabeth Muoio said in a statement. “While the idea of maximizing the value of state assets has been discussed for many years, little concrete action has ever been taken. At the direction of the governor, we designed this (request for bids) to explore tangible, creative solutions to help maximize the state’s assets in order to minimize the burden to taxpayers.” New Jersey’s pension system is among the worst funded in the country, damage done by investment setbacks and decades of underfunding by governors from both parties.
Murphy, a Democrat, has vowed to right that wrong and keep the state on track to make full pension contributions by 2023. He ran for office in 2017 without much more of a plan to fix pensions, and he has said he doesn’t want to reduce employee benefits or force workers to pay more for their benefits when it is the state that created problems by contributing too little. The administration’s call out to financial consultants represents another strategy — absent cutting benefits or raising employee contributions — to improve the fund as the governor confronts pensions’ rising yearly tab and pressure on the state budget. The state will contribute $3.2 billion this year, 60 percent of what is recommended by actuaries.
It also comes months after state Senate President Stephen Sweeney released a report calling for big changes to reduce the cost of government here, including possible tolled fast lanes and cutting government employee health care and pension benefits. Sweeney, D-Gloucester, praised Murphy for following his lead in looking to state assets for help. “The Treasury’s action is fully in line with our recommendations to analyze all of the asset holdings not only of the state government itself, but particularly of various independent authorities, including transportation infrastructure, water and sewer authorities, real estate and reservoirs,” Sweeney said in a statement. He said the Legislature stands ready to get it done, “as we did two years ago when we worked with the last administration to cut the unfunded pension liability by putting the New Jersey Lottery into the pension system.”
The lottery system guarantees the pension roughly $1 billion a year from ticket sales, and its $13 billion valuation improved the state’s ratio of assets to liabilities, as measured by the state’s own accounting rules. The winning bidder of the state’s solicitation will have until May 15 to analyze the state’s assets — including property, buildings, roads, airports, bridges, ports, recreational facilities, transit facilities, rights of way, and air, development or naming rights — and make its recommendations.
WILL TRUMP POLICY CHANGE PUT A CRIMP IN NEW JERSEY’S ONLINE GAMBLING INDUSTRY? by John Reitmeyer, NJ Spotlight, February 13, 2019
After getting off to a slow start, online gambling has become an important part of Atlantic City’s ongoing revitalization and a reliable source of revenue for the state. But recent action by President Donald Trump’s administration has created uncertainty in the gambling industry that threatens to sink the state’s success.
That would be a sizable loss: New Jersey just enjoyed its strongest year for online gambling, with more than $350 million in annual revenue generated in 2018. Everyone from Gov. Phil Murphy to lawmakers who represent the Atlantic City region has spoken out against a new Trump administration policy that seeks to rein in online gambling and possibly even interstate lotteries. Announced last month with little warning, the new policy could be enforced as early as April.
State Attorney General Gurbir Grewal — who hasn’t been bashful when it comes to suing the Trump administration over policy changes — has also gotten involved. He recently sent a forceful letter to his federal counterparts that alleged their new policy “jeopardizes critical state funding for the public good that is generated by lottery sales and other Internet activity that is legal within our states.” According to his letter, annual tax revenue generated by online gambling now tops $60 million.
Meanwhile, Grewal has also raised concerns that the policy change could be linked to billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, a top Trump donor who has lobbied for it in the past. The attorney general filed a Freedom of Information request with the U.S. Department of Justice that seeks any correspondence the agency has had with Adelson or top lobbyists pressing the online-gambling issue. “We want to know who Justice Department officials spoke with, and why they decided to change their minds,” Grewal said. While gambling has been legal in Atlantic City for decades, New Jersey’s onlinewagering law was enacted in February 2013 by then-Gov. Chris Christie. It established a 15 percent tax on online-gambling revenues — nearly double the 8 percent on brickand-mortar casinos — and it also required online gambling servers to be located in Atlantic City.
Online gambling was pitched by sponsors as a way to help revitalize the casino resort city in the wake of the Great Recession. It got a boost from a policy issued in 2011 by then-President Barack Obama’s administration. The policy addressed the federal Wire Act, a decades-old statute written well before the internet that was originally designed to help prosecutors fight illegal sports-betting rings. The Obama administration’s 2011 policy determined that the act generally did not cover online gambling legalized by the states. In response, New Jersey and Pennsylvania established online gambling and entered into pacts that allowed games to be played across state lines.
Although online-gambling revenues started out slowly in New Jersey, they’ve gained traction. The industry is also getting a boost from sports wagering, which was legalized last year. It’s unclear what will happen next in the wake of the Trump administration’s new online-gambling policy, which has also been viewed as a threat to popular lotteries like Powerball that are played across state lines. Announced in late January, the U.S. Department of Justice has indicated it will wait 90 days before the new policy will be enforced. Since the Wire Act is part of the criminal code, it means those who run afoul of the new policy could face prosecution. “There’s just a whole lot of uncertainty,” said Tommy Shepherd, an attorney from Mississippi who is a national expert on gambling laws, including online wagering. He suggested the issue may ultimately end up being decided by a federal judge. “I really think what’s going to happen is it’s going to be resolved in the courts,” Shepherd said.
An effort to block the Obama administration’s interpretation of the Wire Act was first tried unsuccessfully in Congress by several Republicans who sponsored legislation called the “Restoration of America’s Wire Act.” Reportedly backed by Adelson, the legislative effort raised concerns about gambling addiction and protecting against children gaining access to online gaming. But it was also viewed by many as a way for Adelson to preserve more of the gambling market for his brick-and-mortar casinos. In addition to seeking documents related to any interaction the U.S. Department of Justice has had with Adelson or his lobbyists on the online-gambling issue, Grewal’s letter calls on the Trump administration to drop its new policy or issue a guarantee that there will be no effort to enforce it against companies acting legally in New Jersey under existing statutes. The letter was also endorsed by Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro.
Lawmakers who represent Atlantic City are praising Grewal for jumping into the fray. “The loss of online gambling would mean a loss of jobs, state revenue, and a staple attraction of Atlantic City,” said Assemblyman John Armato (D-Atlantic). “I applaud Attorney General Grewal for taking steps to challenge DOJ’s opinion and protect online gambling in New Jersey and across the nation.” Murphy also raised economic concerns in a public statement. “Our growing online gaming industry is a key component in revitalizing Atlantic City and strengthening New Jersey’s economy,” Murphy said. Meanwhile, Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-Gloucester) said he’s asked former longtime Sen. Ray Lesniak (D-Union) to begin preparing a response to the new federal policy. No stranger to court battles, it was Lesniak, an attorney, who sponsored the original online-gambling law that was enacted by Christie in 2013. His efforts were also instrumental in the case that eventually paved the way for legalized sports betting. “This opinion is outrageous,” Lesniak said. “If Congress won’t fix it, I will through the judicial process.”
UPCOMING NJAC EVENTS: Make sure to mark your calendars for NJAC’s Annual Celebration of County Government set for May 8th through May 10th at Caesar’s in Atlantic City. And, don’t forget to join us at our next board meeting on March 22nd in Committee Room 4 of the State House Annex in Trenton.
STATE HOUSE TRIVIA: Did you that the State’s motto is Liberty and Prosperity?
“Leadership is inspiring people. Management is keeping the trains running on time.” – Andy Dunn