ASSEMBLY APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE

STATEMENT TO

ASSEMBLY, No. 1414

with Assembly committee amendments

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

DATED: JANUARY 29, 1996

  The Assembly Appropriations Committee reports favorably Assembly Bill No. 1414, with committee amendments.

      Assembly Bill No. 1414, as amended, establishes a Business Relocation Assistance Grant program within the Department of Commerce and Economic Development to encourage economic development and job creation in this State. To the extent that funding is available from the General Fund, and with certain other restrictions, the program will provide grants for up to fifty percent of the cost of relocation to businesses which relocate to the State and create a minimum of 25 new full-time jobs in the State. However, an individual grant may not exceed 80% of the projected new income tax revenues realized from the new jobs created by the grant applicant.

      The grants under this bill will not be disbursed in any year until the new income tax revenues equal or exceed the amount of the grant, and grant amounts are further limited by their interaction with other grant programs under amendments adopted by the committee.

      This bill, as amended and reported by this committee, is identical to Senate Bill No. 472 Sca.

FISCAL IMPACT:

      The bill makes a fiscal year 1996 General Fund appropriation to the Department of Commerce and Economic Development of an unspecified amount as needed to fund relocation grants made under this bill; the amount of the appropriation may not exceed the amount of income tax revenues generated from the new jobs created by the grant recipients.

      The Office of Legislative Services cannot project the number of new jobs that will be created by the bill, the wage levels of those jobs and the number of businesses that would have relocated to the State without grant assistance. An estimate of the cost of the program cannot be made at this time.

COMMITTEE AMENDMENTS:

      The committee amendments clarify that greater weight is to be given to the consideration of "full-time employee" when the employee in question earns an average of at least 1.5 times the minimum wage.