ASSEMBLY APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE

STATEMENT TO

ASSEMBLY, No. 1408

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

DATED:  OCTOBER 22, 2026

      The Assembly Appropriations Committee reports favorably Assembly Bill No. 1408.

      As reported, this bill broadens the requirements for the public awareness signs, developed by the Commission on Human Trafficking, containing the national 24-hour hotline information about human trafficking to include translations in Chinese and Korean.  Currently, the public awareness signs are only required to be posted in English and Spanish.

FISCAL IMPACT:

      The Office of Legislative Services (OLS) concludes that this bill will result in a one-time, indeterminate State cost increase for the Department of Law and Public Safety to provide the required translations for the updated human trafficking public awareness signs.

      One provider of translation services that serves State government entities informed the OLS that it charged $0.15 per word to translate documents into Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese) and Korean.   Document translations also incur an additional cost of $39.50 per hour for desktop publishing.

      The website for the Department of Law and Public Safety provides business owners and other establishments with a downloadable sign that can be printed and displayed on their premises to be compliant with current law.  The OLS does not anticipate the department having any additional costs to print and distribute the signage in Chinese and Korean.  However, some costs may be incurred to update the department’s website to provide links to the signs in the new languages.