Office of Legislative Services
State House Annex
P.O. Box 068
Trenton, New Jersey 08625
Legislative Budget and Finance Office
Phone (609) 847-3105
Fax (609) 777-2442
www.njleg.state.nj.us
LEGISLATIVE FISCAL ESTIMATE
[First Reprint]
ASSEMBLY, No. 4653
STATE OF NEW JERSEY
221st LEGISLATURE
DATED: FEBRUARY 26, 2025
SUMMARY
Synopsis: Requires AG to establish training program for crowd management and
provide resources to municipal police department or force for large
gatherings and flash mobs
Type of Impact: Annual State Expenditure Increase.
Agencies Affected: Department of Law and Public Safety.
Office of Legislative Services Estimate
Fiscal Impact
Annual State Expenditure Increase Indeterminate
The Office of Legislative Services (OLS) finds that the bill would require an indeterminate
increase in both upfront and ongoing expenditures for the Department of Law and Public
Safety to establish a crowd management training program, establish a process for municipal
law enforcement to request immediate support during a flash mob, and provide certain
resources, as needed, to municipal law enforcement. The OLS lacks sufficient information on
the number of flash mob occurrences historically or the cost of the resources needed by local
law enforcement to quantify the bill’s fiscal impact on the department.
BILL DESCRIPTION
This bill requires the Office of the Attorney General to establish a crowd management training
program and to provide resources to municipal law enforcement under certain circumstances.
The Office of the Attorney General, in consultation with the New Jersey Division of State
Police, the New Jersey Office of Emergency Management, and the New Jersey State Association
of Chiefs of Police, is required to establish a training program for any municipal police department
located within a municipality that, within the preceding twelve months, hosted two or more
largescale gatherings or where a flash mob occurred.
In addition, the bill requires the Office of the Attorney General to make certain resources
available to any municipal police department that has participated in the training program, FE to A4653 [1R]
2
including: (1) access to social media monitoring tools; (2) mobile command units that may be
deployed; and (3) additional personnel from the Division of State Police to provide support. The
Office of the Attorney General is also required to establish a process for law enforcement to request
immediate support during a flash mob.
FISCAL ANALYSIS
EXECUTIVE BRANCH
None received.
OFFICE OF LEGISLATIVE SERVICES
The OLS finds that the bill would require an indeterminate increase in both upfront and
ongoing expenditures for the Department of Law and Public Safety to establish a crowd
management training program, establish a process for municipal law enforcement to request
immediate support during a flash mob, and provide certain resources, as needed, to municipal law
enforcement.
The OLS anticipates that the department would experience one-time expenditures to establish:
1) the crowd management training program; and 2) the process for municipal law enforcement to
request immediate support during a flash mob. Any further periodic cost increases would result
from the intermittent updating of the training course curriculum and instruction and the provision
of State resources when requested by an affected municipality. Currently, the New Jersey Police
Training Commission’s Basic Course for Police Officers training curriculum has a training module
dedicated to riot and crowd control as well as a revised training module regarding interactions with
juveniles.
The OLS cannot estimate the cost to develop and provide training to municipal law
enforcement officers or to establish a policy for municipal law enforcement to reach out to the
Office of the Attorney General for immediate support during a flash mob; however, the OLS
determines that meeting these requirements of this bill may not be overly labor-intensive and that
the concerned entities may be able to absorb the additional workload within their existing operating
budgets.
Additionally, the OLS lacks the informational basis to predict the frequency with which
affected municipalities that have completed the training program will request resources from the
Office of the Attorney General to arrive at a cost estimate for that provision of the bill.
Section: Law and Public Safety
Analyst: Kristin Brunner Santos
Lead Fiscal Analyst
Approved: Thomas Koenig
Legislative Budget and Finance Officer
This legislative fiscal estimate has been produced by the Office of Legislative Services due to the
failure of the Executive Branch to respond to our request for a fiscal note.
This fiscal estimate has been prepared pursuant to P.L.1980, c.67 (C.52:13B-6 et seq.).