New Jersey-2010-A1464-Introduced

An Act concerning the use of certain transportation funds, amending P.L.1984, c.73.

Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:

1. Section 21 of P.L.1984, c.73 (C.27:1B-21) is amended to read as follows:

21. a. There is hereby established a separate fund entitled "Special Transportation Fund." This fund shall be maintained by the State Treasurer and may be held in depositories as may be selected by the treasurer and invested and reinvested as other funds in the custody of the treasurer, in the manner provided by law. The commissioner may from time to time (but not more frequently than monthly) certify to the authority an amount necessary to fund payments made, or anticipated to be made by or on behalf of the department, from appropriations established for or made to the department from revenues or other funds of the authority. The commissioner's certification shall be deemed conclusive for purposes of the act. The authority shall, within 15 days of receipt of the certificate, transfer from available funds of the authority to the treasurer for deposit in the Special Transportation Fund the amount certified by the commissioner, provided that all funds transferred shall only be expended by the department by project pursuant to appropriations made from time to time by the Legislature for the purposes of the act.

b. The department shall not expend any money except as appropriated by law. Commencing with appropriations for the fiscal years beginning on July 1, 1988, the department shall not expend any funds except as are appropriated by specific projects identified by a description of the projects, the county or counties within which they are located, and amounts to be expended on each project, in the annual appropriations act.

c. No funds appropriated, authorized or expended pursuant to this act shall be used to finance the resurfacing of highways by department personnel, where that resurfacing would require the use of more than 100,000 tons of bituminous concrete for that purpose in any calendar year, except that the commissioner may waive this provision when he determines the existence of emergency conditions requiring the use of department personnel for the resurfacing of highways, after the department has effectively reached the 100,000 ton limit.

d. In order to provide the department with flexibility in administering the specific appropriations by project identified in the annual appropriations act, the commissioner may transfer a part of any item to any other item subject to the approval of the Director of the Division of Budget and Accounting and of the Joint Budget Oversight Committee or its successor. Upon approval of the director and the committee, the transfer shall take effect.

e. Any federal funds which become available to the State for transportation projects which have not been appropriated to the department in the annual appropriations act, shall be deemed appropriated to the department and may, subject to approval by the Joint Budget Oversight Committee and the State Treasurer, be expended for any purpose for which such funds are qualified.

f. There shall be no appropriations from the revenues and other funds of the authority for regular and routine maintenance of public highways and components thereof, or operational activities of the department unrelated to the implementation of, and indirect costs associated with, the capital program. The commissioner shall include in his annual budget request sufficient funding to effectuate the purposes of P.L.2000, c.73 (C.27:1B-21.14 et al.).

g. To the extent that salaries or overhead of the department or the New Jersey Transit Corporation are charged to transportation projects, each agency shall keep adequate and truthful personnel records, and time charts to adequately justify each such charge and shall make those records available to the external auditor to the authority.

h. The commissioner shall annually, on or before January 1 of each fiscal year, report to the Governor and the Legislature how much money was expended in the previous fiscal year for salaries and overhead of the department and the New Jersey Transit Corporation. However, the amount expended from the revenues and other funds of the authority for salaries and overhead of the department and the New Jersey Transit Corporation for the fiscal year beginning July 1, [2006 and each fiscal year thereafter1] 2009 shall not exceed [13] 14 percent of the total funds appropriated from the revenues and other nonfederal funds of the authority for [those] that fiscal [years] year. The amount expended from the revenues and other funds of the authority for salaries and overhead of the department and the New Jersey Transit Corporation for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2010 and each fiscal year thereafter shall not exceed 15 percent of the total funds appropriated from the revenues and other nonfederal funds of the authority for those fiscal years.

i. No revenues or other funds of the authority shall be expended for emergency response operations, the review of applications for access permits under the State highway access management code and membership fees or other fees connected with membership in TRANSCOM, the Transportation Operations Coordinating Committee.

(cf: P.L.2006, c.3, s.2)

2. (New section) Any increase in the number of employees of the Department of Transportation or the New Jersey Transit Corporation due to the provisions of subsection h. of section 21 of P.L.1984, c.73 (C.27:1B-21) increasing the percentage of appropriated funds which may be expended by the Department of Transportation and the New Jersey Transit Corporation on salaries and overhead in the fiscal years commencing July 1, 2009 and July 1, 2010 and each fiscal year thereafter shall not count toward the limitation, provided under section 2 of P.L.2008, c.21 (C.52:18A-248), on the number of employees which may be hired to fill vacancies in the executive branch created due to executive branch employees retiring to receive additional retirement benefits pursuant to section 1 of P.L.2008, c.21.

3. This act shall take effect on July 1, 2009.

STATEMENT

Under current law, the amount of money from the revenues and other funds of the Transportation Trust Fund Authority ("authority") that may be spent on the salaries and overhead of the New Jersey Department of Transportation ("DOT") and the New Jersey Transit Corporation ("NJ Transit") shall not exceed 13 percent of the total amount of funds appropriated to the authority in a given fiscal year. For fiscal year 2010, this bill would increase the maximum percentage of authority funds that may be spent on DOT and NJ Transit salaries and overhead to 14 percent. For fiscal year 2011 and every fiscal year thereafter, the maximum percentage of authority funds that may be spent on such salaries and overhead would increase to 15 percent.

The bill provides that any increase in the number of employees hired by DOT or NJ Transit due to the increase in the percentage of appropriated funds which may be spent on salaries and overhead permitted under the bill shall not count toward the limitation on filling vacancies pursuant to the 2008 Early Retirement Incentive ("ERI"). The law establishing the ERI limited the number of executive branch employees who may be hired to fill vacancies created by the ERI to 10 percent of the total number of all executive branch employees who retired pursuant to the ERI.

The intent of this bill is to grant the DOT and NJ Transit greater ability to conduct certain functions using in-house resources rather than hiring outside consultants to perform the same work. A series of studies conducted by the DOT has revealed that increasing the use of in-house staff to perform various functions, including design, bridge inspection, and construction inspection, could result in substantial cost savings for the State.