ASSEMBLY BUDGET COMMITTEE

STATEMENT TO

ASSEMBLY, No. 5688

with committee amendments

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

DATED:  JUNE 26, 2025

      The Assembly Budget Committee reports favorably and with committee amendments, Assembly Bill No. 5688.

      As amended, this bill imposes a daily, $3 per room, surcharge on the occupancy of room or rooms in a hotel located in a municipality that is classified as a city of the first class and in which there is located an international airport. 

      The bill requires the Director of the Division of Taxation to collect the surcharge and deposit all surcharge revenues into a dedicated fire service trust fund to support firefighting services provided by the municipality.  Surcharge revenues would be remitted to the municipality on a monthly basis.  The bill allows fire service trust fund revenues to be expended to support the hiring, retention, and training of fire service employees, the acquisition of fire service equipment, and the undertaking of capital improvements benefitting the municipality’s fire service.

      The bill specifies that the amount of trust revenues appropriated and expended for the hiring and retention of fire service employees may not exceed 37 percent of all surcharge revenue received by the municipality and deposited into the dedicated fire service trust fund in 2026, 2027, and 2028.  Beginning in 2029, the Director of the Division of Local Government Services in the Department of Community Affairs may set the maximum percentage of surcharge revenue received by the municipality that may be utilized for the hiring and retention of employees of the fire service.

      The surcharge revenues are intended to supplement, rather than replace, appropriations for firefighting services that are supported by general revenues, such as the municipal State aid and the property tax levy.  To that end, the bill allows a municipality to appropriate the surcharge revenues in the municipal budget only if municipal appropriations for firefighting services in the current fiscal year are higher than municipal appropriations for firefighting services in the prior fiscal year.

      The bill provides that, subject to the approval of the Director of the Division of Budget and Accounting in the Department of the Treasury, the amounts collected and administered pursuant to the bill, by the Director of the Division of Taxation in the Department of the Treasury from the $3 per day surcharge imposed pursuant to the bill, are to be appropriated to the relevant municipality for deposit in the municipality’s dedicated fire services trust fund.

COMMITTEE AMENDMENTS:

      The committee amended the bill to:

      (1)  specify that, subject to the approval of the Director of the Division of Budget and Accounting in the Department of the Treasury, the amounts collected and administered pursuant to the bill, by the Director of the Division of Taxation in the Department of the Treasury from the $3 per day surcharge imposed pursuant to the bill, are to be appropriated to the relevant municipality for deposit in the municipality’s dedicated fire services trust fund; and

      (2)  revise the title and synopsis.

FISCAL IMPACT:

      Fiscal information is not available at this time.