November 2, 2018 Edition Code Red Alerts County governments across the State have been struggling to implement and fund the 2017 law that requires county emergency management coordinators to issue Code Blue alerts under certain circumstances.  With this in mind, NJAC plans to meet with the sponsors of Senate, No.  3121/Assembly, No. 4566 (Greenstien D14)(Vainieri Huttle D-37) to discuss our concerns with this legislation, which would require counties to establish Code Red alert plans during hot weather conditions. In summary, this bill would require a county office of emergency managemen...

Electronic Procurement  On October 15th, the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee will consider Assembly, No. 3112 (Benson D-14/Mukerhi D-33)(Beach D-6/Oroho R-24), which would authorize local governing bodies subject to the “Local Public Contracts Law” and “Public School Contracts Law” to use electronic procurement technologies. In summary, this legislation would authorize local governing bodies to use electronic procurement for the receipt of proposals and quotations, competitive contracting, reverse auctions, the purchase of goods and services, the sale of personal property, and ot...

911 FUNDING Special thanks to Camden County Freeholder Jonathan Young and Salem County Freeholder Melissa DeCastro for taking the time out of their busy schedules last week to meet with legislative leadership concerning the fact that the federal government is moving forward with plans to make New Jersey ineligible for $115.0 million in 911 grant funding to upgrade public safety answering points (PSAPs) with Next Generation (NG911) capabilities. In fact, on August 3rd the Federal Registry contained new regulations that will “require all applications for grant funding to: “certify that the Sta...

State Medical Examiner System On July 3rd, Governor Murphy signed into law as P.L. 2018, c.62 Senate, No. 976 (Vitale D-19), which would establish the “Revised State Medical Examiner Act.” In summary, the new law establishes the Office of the Chief State Medical Examiner in the Department of Health to replace the Office of the State Medical Examiner in the Department of Law and Public Safety. The measure abolishes the existing Office of the State Medical Examiner in the Department of Law and Public Safety and transfers all of its functions, powers, and duties to the newly established Office...

April 13, 2018 County Commissioners Although we have yet to review the latest version of Senate, No. 402 (Pennacchio R-26/Van Drew D-1), on April 12th the Senate approved a substitute bill for the legislation that would replace the term “freeholder” with “commissioner.” We’ll make sure to provide you with the new language as soon as it becomes available, and will keep you posted on the progress of its counterpart Assembly, No. 2157 (DeCroce D-26), which is currently in the Assembly State and Local Government Committee awaiting consideration. S-402 is now on Second Reading in the Senat...

March 16, 2018 Pension Changes On February 26th, the Senate was scheduled to vote on Senate, No. 5 (Sweeney D-3/Kean R-21), but instead held the measure to consider potential amendments that the upper house will likely adopt at its voting session on March 26th.  In the meantime, NJAC and the New Jersey State League of Municipalities (NJLM) met on March 15th with representatives from the offices of the Speaker of the General Assembly and prime sponsor of the companion version Assembly, No. 3671 (Johnson D-37/Dancer R-12) to discuss our long-standing concerns with the measure. Funded e...

February 16, 2018 Pension Changes On February 5th, the New Jersey Association of Counties (NJAC) and the New Jersey State League of Municipalities (NJLM) testified before the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee in opposition to legislation that would transfer management of the Police and Firemen’s Retirement System (PFRS) to the Board of Trustees of PFRS without our recommended safeguards to protect PFRS members, local governing bodies, and property taxpayers.  Funded entirely by property taxpayer dollars, county and municipal governments across the State will spend an estimate...

January 12, 2018 Caps on Binding Interest Arbitration Awards Despite the fact that the 2% cap on binding interest arbitration awards expired on December 31st, NJAC and the New Jersey State League of Municipalities (NJSLOM) are continuing to urge Governor Elect Phil Murphy and members of new State Legislature to permanently extend the cap in the wake of stern warnings from Moody’s Investors Services and Fitch Ratings about failure to reinstate the measure. Moody’s noted “that salary costs are among the largest of municipal expenditures, the cost implications are obvious and considerable,” ...

December 22, 2017 Caps on Binding Interest Arbitration Awards NJAC and the New Jersey State League of Municipalities (NJSLOM) met on December 15th with Governor Elect Phil Murphy’s Chief of Staff and Chief Counsel to discuss permanently extending the 2% cap on binding interest awards. We also held a press conference on December 18th with a broad based coalition of community and business leaders from across the State who hailed the cap as a critical tool for controlling personnel costs; negotiating reasonable successor contracts; and, avoiding arbitration awards granted by third party burea...

December 15, 2017 Caps on Binding Interest Arbitration Awards Later today, NJAC and the New Jersey State League of Municipalities (NJSLOM) are meeting with Governor Elect Phil Murphy’s Chief of Staff and Chief Counsel to discuss permanently extending the 2% cap on binding interest arbitration awards set to expire in two short weeks.  We’ll make sure to let you know how the meeting goes. We’re also expecting a strong showing of county and municipal officials on December 18th for NJAC and NJSLOM’s press conference and lobby day, where over a dozen associations will join us in support of exten...