ASSEMBLY ENVIRONMENT, NATURAL RESOURCES, AND SOLID WASTE COMMITTEE

STATEMENT TO

ASSEMBLY, No. 5265

with committee amendments

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

DATED:  MAY 8, 2025

      The Assembly Environment, Natural Resources, and Solid Waste Committee reports favorably and with committee amendments Assembly Bill No. 5265.

      This bill, as amended by the committee, proposes to enhance enforcement of the "Landscape Irrigation Contractor Certification Act of 1991," P.L.1991, c.27 (C.45:5AA-1 et seq.), by empowering local enforcing agencies to: institute civil actions for injunctive or other appropriate relief, and assess civil administrative penalties, upon those who appear to have violated the act or the rules adopted pursuant thereto.  Currently, the Department of Community Affairs is solely responsible for enforcement of the act, without local support, to inspect job sites around the State to ascertain whether contractors are violating the act.  The bill allows each local (construction code) enforcing agency to inspect, fine, and shut down a work site if it is determined that a contractor has violated a provision of the act, including the provision that requires a contractor to be licensed in order to perform irrigation work.

      Additionally, the bill increases the amount a person may be penalized for violating the act to not more than $5,000 for the first offense, not more than $10,000 for the second offense, and not more than $15,000 for each subsequent offense.  Thirty percent of the revenues derived from the civil penalties and civil administrative penalties are to be deposited into the Landscape Irrigation Penalty Enforcement Fund, established pursuant to the bill.  The remaining 70 percent of the revenues derived from the civil penalties and civil administrative penalties are to be retained by the municipality or pilot county in which the violation occurred. 

COMMITTEE AMENDMENTS:

      The committee amendments to the bill would:

      (1)  establish a nonlapsing fund in the Department of Community Affairs entitled the Landscape Irrigation Penalty Enforcement Fund for the purpose of depositing revenues from penalties levied pursuant to the "Landscape Irrigation Contractor Certification Act of 1991," P.L.1991, c.27 (C.45:5AA-1 et seq.), or any code, rule, regulation, or order adopted or issued pursuant to the 1991 act;

      (2)  provide that 30 percent of the revenue derived from the civil penalties and civil administrative penalties under the bill are to be deposited into the Landscape Irrigation Penalty Enforcement Fund, instead of the State General Fund;

      (3)  provide that monies deposited in the Landscape Irrigation Penalty Enforcement Fund, and any interest earned thereon, are to be made available to the Department of Community Affairs for purposes deemed appropriate by the Commissioner of Community Affairs; and

      (4)  make technical corrections to the bill.