In the name of transparency, New Jersey for decades has required public bodies to publish official notices in newspapers of meeting dates, certain contract bids and awards, ordinances, annual budgets, professional services solicitations and awards, sheriff’s sales, certain legal documents and court orders. With the press acting as both a watchdog and a skeptic, holding the government accountable and ensuring transparency, the intent was for those notices to be published in a forum independent of the government.
But with more print newspapers ceasing publication — most notably, The Star-Ledger in February — proposals to allow those governmental bodies to stop publishing public notices in print newspapers and, instead, post them on their own or state websites. Legislation enacted late last year set a March 1 deadline for the change, but that was then extended to June 30 as lawmakers and lobbyists continue to haggle over the details and whether print and digital newspapers will still serve as the repository for legal notices.
Late last November, in a front-page editorial, this newspaper said that, “the idea that government entities should be allowed to publish notices on their own websites is absurd,” adding that there would be “no way to tell when they publish them or if they met the time requirements.” The Westfield Leader
are legal newspapers; as a result, we receive budgets, ordinances, meeting notices and agendas — “in a timely, legally prescribed fashion,” we wrote last November, “before they are voted on by a governing body. We share them with you, the public, through your normal course of reading both in print and online. This gives us all time to ask questions, do research and be prepared for hearings to come. It prevents elected officials from sneaking big expenditures, contract awards and new laws through the process without independent sets of eyes on it.”
In the meantime, area governing bodies have passed identical resolutions urging legislators to authorize municipalities, counties, school districts and all local governments to publish legal notices on their own official websites. These resolutions also state that local governments “should no longer be required to subsidize the newspaper industry with revenues collected from publishing legal notices in the press.”
In April, the Fanwood Borough Council backed that resolution, following similar action taken by governing bodies in Scotch Plains and Cranford, which passed identical resolutions in March, Union County and Clark, which did so in February.
The reasoning behind the move is that it will save taxpayer dollars, but a review of the pages in The Leader and HAWK reveals that last year, while most municipal and county governments spent several thousand dollars each on public notices, those expenses were truly minuscule when looked at in relation to their multi-million-dollar operating budgets.
The Union County government in 2024 spent some $16,000 on nearly 250 public notices, including sheriff’s sales notices and Superior Court notices. That is about half the amount, for instance, that was allocated for the county’s alcohol/drug abuse grant ($34,155) and for its comprehensive cancer control grant ($28,100). As a percentage of the county’s $543-million operating budget last year, the cost of public notices last year amounted to just under 0.00003 percent — that’s three one-hundred thousandths — of the county’s total expenses last year.
The Westfield municipal government last year paid just over $11,000 to place nearly 180 public notices in these pages. When looked at in relation to the town’s $53.4-million operating budget last year, the money spent on publishing those notices amounted to just 0.0002 percent — that is two ten-thousandths — of total expenditures. That was less than the $15,000 appropriation for the town’s LOSAP program for firefighters. The Scotch Plains municipal government spent nearly the same amount on publishing public notices as Westfield. Again, when looked at in relation to the township’s $30-million municipal operating budget last year, the cost to post those 85 notices amounted to a tiny bit more, 0.0004 percent — four ten-thousandths — of the township’s total expenditures.
Fanwood’s municipal government placed about 110 public notices in the Leader and HAWK in 2024, spending just over $6,000, which accounted for just over five ten-thousandths of a percent — 0.0005 percent — of the borough’s $11.4-million operating budget last year. Similarly-sized Garwood placed close to 80 public notices in these newspapers last year and paid more than $6,700 — or three ten-thousandths of the borough’s $11.36-million budget in 2024. Mountainside’s government placed just 22 notices last year at a total cost of barely $800, and as a share of the borough’s $15.4-million budget in 2024, they accounted for just 0.00005 percent, or five one-hundred thousandths.
Clark’s government published close to 50 public notices in 2024 at a cost of just under $5,500 — or just under two ten-thousandths of the township’s $30.4-million in expenditures last year. Surprisingly, Cranford’s municipal government placed more than 260 public notices in the Leader and HAWK and paid more than $15,000 in total, accounting for just three ten-thousandths of a percent of the township’s $46.7-million budget last year.
In all, the eight entities placing public notices in these newspapers last year —the county and the seven municipalities — spent an aggregate of about $72,000 — or 0.000093 percent. That’s nine one-hundred thousandths of their combined operating budgets of $741.7 million.
The fiscal impact on the budgets of local boards of education was even more of a drop in the bucket, with the Westfield Board of Education’s public- notice expenses of just under $1,500 accounting for just over 0.00001 percent — one one-hundred thousandth — of the board’s $133-million budget last year. The Scotch Plains-Fanwood board spent a similar amount in 2024 and that accounted for a similar share of its $119.5-million budget. The Mountainside board’s $856 in public notice expenses last year amounted to 0.00004 percent — four one-hundred thousandths — of the board’s $21million budget, while Cranford’s board of education spent about $2,800 on notices in these pages last year, or roughly 0.004 percent of its $78 million budget. Garwood’s public-notice expenses were similar to Mountainside in terms of dollars spent and the impact on its budget. The Clark board of education placed no public notices in the Leader and HAWK last year.
New Jersey Press Association(NJPA) newspapers, including this one, already upload all the notices to njpublicnotices.com, which holds a searchable database for all notices from newspapers around the state. For the state to try re-create such a robust database, as some legislators propose, would be time consuming and costly. The NJPA has worked with State Senator Andrew Zwicker on legislation (S4484) that will keep these legal notices with newspapers and the public, where they belong, but with a modern pricing structure and allowance for digital publication. Please call your legislators and ask them to support this bill.
State LD-21
Sen. Jon Bramnick (R)
senbramnick@njleg.org
(908) 232-2073
Asw. Michele Matsikoudis (R)
aswmatsikoudis@njleg.org
(908) 679-8889
Asw. Nancy Munoz (R)
aswmunoz@njleg.org
(908) 918-0414
State LD-22
Sen. Nicholas Scutari (D)
senscutari@njleg.org
(908) 587-0404
Asm. Jim Kennedy (D)
asmkennedy@njleg.org
(732) 943-2660
Asw. Linda Carter (D)
aswcarter@njleg.org
(908) 561-5757
