SENATE BUDGET AND APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE

STATEMENT TO

SENATE, No. 665

with committee amendments

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

DATED:  DECEMBER 14, 2023

      The Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee reports favorably and with committee amendments Senate Bill No. 665.

      As amended and reported, this bill requires the Chief Administrator of the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission (commission) to add a designation on a motor vehicle’s registration information indicating the registrant is deaf.  The notation would only appear when a law enforcement officer accesses the motor vehicle's license plate information through the commission’s online interface with law enforcement agencies and may only be used to alert the law enforcement officer that the person is deaf or hard of hearing.

      The designation would be added to the applicant’s motor vehicle registration information 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.

COMMITTEE AMENDMENTS:

      The committee amendments change the requirements of the bill to provide that the commission would be required to add a designation to an eligible applicant’s motor vehicle registration information, which designation bears the international symbol for deafness or a numerical code designating deafness.  As introduced, the bill would have required the commission to issue a special registration certificate bearing this symbol to an eligible applicant. Additionally, the amendments provide that the designation may appear only when a law enforcement officer accesses the motor vehicle's license plate information through the commission’s online interface with law enforcement agencies, and the designation may only be used to alert the law enforcement officer that the person is deaf or hard of hearing.

      The amendments also update the title synopsis of the bill to reflect these changes to the bill.

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, which the OLS is unable to anticipate.

      It is not known what type of changes will be made to registration information 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 commission has issued to its vendors in the past.  The bill’s requirements are not expected to significantly alter the existing contract with document vendors.