SENATE BUDGET AND APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE

 

STATEMENT TO

 

SENATE, No. 1740

 

with committee amendments

 

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

 

DATED:  JANUARY 21, 2021

 

      The Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee reports favorably and with committee amendments Senate Bill No. 1740.

      As amended and reported, this bill requires the Chief Administrator of the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission to place a notation on a vehicle’s registration certificate indicating the registrant is deaf.  This notation is to be placed on the certificate provided the applicant has a hearing loss of 41 decibels or greater.  As part of the application process, an otorhinolaryngologist (ENT) or an audiologist clinically certified by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association is required to verify the applicant’s hearing ability.  Upon approval, the chief administrator is required to issue the applicant a special registration certificate with the international symbol for deafness or a numerical code designating deafness, whichever the applicant prefers.  No additional fees will be assessed for applicants who seek a special registration certificate.

 

COMMITTEE AMENDMENTS:

      The committee amended the bill to provide that the bill is to take effect on the 180th day after the end of the state of emergency declared by the Governor in Executive Order No. 103 of 2020 in response to the spread of the Coronavirus disease 2019, instead of on the 180th day after enactment.

 

FISCAL IMPACT:

      The Office of Legislative Services (OLS) projects that the bill will result in indeterminate initial development costs and ongoing administrative expenditures for the State.  The magnitude of any State cost increase will depend on implementation decisions made by the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission (MVC), which the OLS is unable to anticipate.

      It is not known what type of changes will be made to registration documents or the cost to make those changes; however, programming or design changes of this type can largely be completed with the assistance of the Office of Information Technology, and the change orders are expected to be comparable to other change orders that the MVC has issued to its vendors in the past for document alterations.  The bill’s requirements are not expected to significantly alter the existing contract with document vendors.