FISCAL NOTE TO

SENATE, No. 903

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

DATED: OCTOBER 21, 1996

      Senate Bill No. 903 of 1996 would establish a central registry of domestic violence court orders which identify persons who are subject to domestic violence court orders which bar them from purchasing a weapon. The police would consult the registry when evaluating applications for firearms purchaser identification cards and permits to purchase handguns. The registry would be funded by a $10 surcharge imposed on firearms purchases.

      A permit to purchase a handgun is required for every handgun purchased. A purchaser identification card may be used to purchase an unlimited number of rifles and shotguns.

      The State Police indicated that during 1995, 33,564 permits to purchase handguns were issued, resulting in $335,640 in potential annual revenue under this bill. A total of 16,561 firearms purchase identification cards were issued in 1995. Assuming that persons who obtained identification cards purchased only one shot gun or rifle during that year, an additional $165,610 in revenue would have been generated under this bill. Thus, total revenue of $501,250 would be produced under this bill if the annual rate of issuance of permits and identification cards remained constant. However, these revenues are significantly less than might be expected under this bill. They do not include surcharges from initial identification card holders who make multiple purchases of long guns and those purchases by persons who received identification cards in previous years. A central source of data on these purchases does not exist.

      The Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) stated that in order to develop a central registry of domestic violence court orders, it would be necessary to implement the system in three phases.

      Phase I would consist of completion of the statewide implementation of the domestic violence portions of the Family Automated Case Tracking System (FACTS); development of a summary inquiry system reflecting all outstanding court orders against particular defendants; modifications of the FACTS system to permit 24-hour updating of temporary and final court orders; and installation of equipment to enable sheriff''s departments to serve as central 24-hour registries. The total equipment costs for this phase would be $447,800. The development, training and documentation cost would total $120,000. Annual communications expenditures would be $32,200 for a total Phase I cost of $600,000, according to the AOC.

      Phase II would consist of a linkage between FACTS and PROMIS/GAVEL (Criminal Case Management System), providing for a common view of information pertaining to defendants of domestic violence offenses and relevant information on indictable offenses. The cost of this phase would total $275,000 for development, training and documentation, according to the AOC.

      Phase III would consist of designing, developing and implementing an interface enabling ACS (Automated Criminal System), FACTS, PROMIS/GAVEL and CCIS (County Corrections Information System) to share common data related to domestic violence matters and the status of related restraining orders. The Phase III cost would total $1,260,000 for development, training, and documentation, according to the AOC.

      The total AOC cost to implement the provisions of this bill would be $2,135,000.

      The Office of Legislative Services concurs with this estimate, and notes that the revenues produced under this bill should be sufficient to amortize the substantial one-time implementation expenses over a period of years and to defray the continuing operating costs of this bill.

This fiscal note has been prepared pursuant to P.L.1980, c.67.