ASSEMBLY, No. 1775

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

219th LEGISLATURE

 

PRE-FILED FOR INTRODUCTION IN THE 2020 SESSION

 


 

Sponsored by:

Assemblywoman  NANCY F. MUNOZ

District 21 (Morris, Somerset and Union)

 

 

 

 

SYNOPSIS

     Requires settlement agreements concerning equal employment opportunity to be approved by NJT board of directors.

 

CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT

     Introduced Pending Technical Review by Legislative Counsel.

  


An Act concerning certain settlement agreements entered into by the New Jersey Transit Corporation and supplementing Title 27 of the Revised Statutes.

 

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

 

     1.    a.  The New Jersey Transit Corporation shall not enter into any discrimination-related settlement agreement unless the corporation’s board of directors first approves the discrimination-related settlement agreement.

     b.    The board of directors shall require a report to be prepared annually by the executive director and provided to the board which contains the discrimination-related settlement agreements approved in the immediately preceding year, a comparison of discrimination-related settlement agreements approved in the immediately preceding year with the discrimination-related settlement agreements approved in the preceding five years, and an indication of the department or unit subject to the complaint or allegations underlying the discrimination-related settlement agreement.  The report prepared pursuant to this subsection shall be immediately published on the corporation’s website and, within 10 days, submitted to the Governor and, pursuant to section 2 of P.L.1991, c.164 (C.52:14-19.1), to the Legislature.

     c.     For the purposes of this section, “discrimination-related settlement agreement” means any binding legal agreement between the corporation and any other party or parties arising from any complaint filed pursuant to the corporation’s equal opportunity policy or under federal or State laws and regulations that prohibit discrimination.

 

     2.    This act shall take effect immediately.

 

 

STATEMENT

 

     This bill prohibits the New Jersey Transit Corporation (NJ Transit) from entering into any settlement agreement concerning equal employment opportunity or unlawful discrimination unless the settlement agreement is approved by the NJ Transit board of directors.  NJ Transit’s bylaws only require approval from the board of directors if a settlement agreement involves an amount of money in excess of $500,000.

     The bill also requires NJ Transit to prepare an annual report that contains the discrimination-related settlement agreements approved in the immediately preceding year, a comparison of discrimination-related settlement agreements approved in the immediately preceding year with the discrimination-related settlement agreements approved in the preceding five years, and an indication of the department or unit subject to the complaint or allegations underlying the discrimination-related settlement agreement.  The report is required to be published on NJ Transit’s website and submitted to the Governor and the Legislature.