SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
STATEMENT TO
SENATE, No. 4136
with committee amendments
STATE OF NEW JERSEY
DATED: FEBRUARY 20, 2025
The Senate Judiciary Committee reports favorably and with
committee amendments Senate Bill No. 4136.
This bill, as amended, provides that a newspaper utilized, or that
was permitted to be utilized, by a person for the purpose of complying
with any legal requirement, or a public body, as defined in section 3 of
the “Senator Byron M. Baer Open Public Meetings Act,” P.L.1975,
c.231 (C.10:4-8), from January 1, 2024 through December 31, 2024
for the purpose of complying with R.S.35:1-2.2 or any other
requirements for issuing or publishing a public notice or legal
advertisement, including, but not limited to, for providing adequate
notice of a meeting, the solicitation of bids, qualifications, or
proposals, or the publication of any ordinances, synopses, or
summaries of official documents, would be deemed eligible for the
same purposes through June 30, 2025 if the newspaper’s publication is
in print or electronic format. Currently, the statutory law only
provides eligibility for persons or public bodies to use the qualifying
newspapers for such purposes whether in print or electronic format
through March 1, 2025, thus the bill would establish a four-month
extension for their continued use.
The bill would also require, within 30 days of the bill’s effective
date, a newspaper or online news publication that provides services to
a public body for the purposes of the public body complying with the
public notice and legal advertisement requirements as described above,
to submit certain data to the Governor and to the Office of Public
Information in the Office of Legislative Services for distribution to the
membership of the Legislative Services Commission. The data is
required to include information on the newspaper’s or online news
publication’s:
- number of paid digital subscriptions, by each public body;
- number of unpaid digital or print subscriptions, by each public
body;
- number of newspapers sold each day by retailers;
- amounts billed for publication of public notices and legal
advertisements in print or electronic format from 2020-2024 by each
public body;
- average retail price of digital and print subscriptions; 2
- number of daily page views for the webpage on the online news
publication’s Internet website where public notices and legal
advertisements are published from January 1, 2024 through the
effective date of the bill; and
- any other information as may be requested by the Legislative
Services Commission within deadlines to be determined by the
commission.
The bill would take effect immediately.
The committee amendments to the bill:
- alter the proposed end date for the use of eligible newspapers for
required public notices and legal advertisements, regardless of format,
from December 31, 2025 to June 30, 2025;
- require a newspaper or online news publication that provides
services to a public body for the purposes of that body complying with
the current law’s public notice and legal advertisement requirements,
to submit information to Governor and the Legislative Services
Commission on subscription numbers and pricing, newspapers sold by
retailers, amounts billed for notice and advertising services, daily
webpage views of notices and advertisements since January 1, 2024,
and any other information requested by the commission; and
- update the bill’s title and synopsis to reflect the changes made by
the amendments.