Nicholas Pugliese and Bob Jordan

Staff Writers

A fast-tracked bill that would allow governments to forgo publishing budgets, bids for services and other public records in newspapers and instead post them exclusively online triggered debate Tuesday among legislators, who were split on its potential impact on New Jersey’s media landscape.

Supporters framed it as a cost-saving measure for taxpayers in an age when digital news consumption is increasingly the norm. It was denounced by opponents as an assault on the state’s newspapers that would result in less investigative reporting, staffing cuts in newsrooms and reduced governmental transparency.

Some critics also questioned the timing of the bill, introduced on the same day as a separate measure to allow Governor Christie to cash in on a book deal while in office in exchange for raises for lawmakers’ staffs, judges, county prosecutors and other officials. One legislative source told The Record over the weekend that the legal notices bill was meant to punish New Jersey’s newspapers.

“I buy six newspapers a day, hard copies, and I love it. I’m fearful that newspapers will go out of business,” said state Sen. and former Gov. Richard J. Codey, D-Essex. “Any democracy is better off with overseers like newspapers. Without them, you don’t truly know what’s going on in your communities or state.”

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When a similar and unsuccessful version of the bill was introduced in 2011, the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services said it could not determine the measure’s financial impact on local governments. Citing the New Jersey Press Association, it estimated that local governments spend approximately $20 million on legal notices annually, about 60 percent of which is reimbursed by private entities.

Spread across the state’s 565 municipalities, the average local government could save about $14,160 by publishing notices digitally, based on the numbers cited by the Office of Legislative Services.

But switching to new or expanded digital sites might mean greater costs for public governments, the report said.

Advertisement rates for legal notices are set by statute and have not risen since 1983.

Supporters of the bill insisted it can help reduce taxes.

“I think it’s going to save money, so that’s why I support it,” said Sen. Mike Doherty, R-Warren, who is sponsoring the Senate version of the bill. “It’s tough financial times for local and county governments, so if there’s a way for us to meet this legal requirement and save some money, I think it’s a good thing.”

“This is one that I think is good for the taxpayers of New Jersey,” echoed Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto, D-Secaucus, sponsoring the Assembly version of the bill. “These monies could go to lower the tax levy and directly to property tax relief.”

Good-government advocates and state newspaper industry leaders said legislators who want to switch to digital ads fail to recognize that public notices in newspapers are a proven method for governments to communicate with taxpayers in a way that can’t be hacked or altered. Abolishing that source of revenue, they added, could lead to job cuts.

“No other state has abolished public notices in newspapers, simply because doing so would hurt the taxpayer,” said Thomas Donovan, chairman of the New Jersey Press Association and northeast regional president of Gannett East group, which includes The Record and six other media properties in New Jersey.

“Government-run websites, where future notices would be posted if this bill goes through, would tempt elected officials to change, delete or delay embarrassing government notices, especially during election time,” he said. “This is a measure that will not only hide government actions from the public but also kill hundreds of media jobs across the state and possibly shut down many weekly news operations.”

Michael Darcy, executive director of the New Jersey League of Municipalities, said his organization supported the legislation because digital is the “default” mode of communication these days, and because the bill allows municipalities to continue to publish legal notices in print newspapers if they so choose.

“We’re not here to try to determine who the winners or losers are in the print industry,” he said. “We are here to try to get the local government work done as efficiently as possible.”

But Sen. Loretta Weinberg, D-Teaneck, and other legislators said the bill could potentially shut off people with limited Internet access to important public information and would strain print newspapers, including weekly publications, in an environment where they are already struggling to maintain staffing levels.

“It hastens the declining revenue picture, which will hasten the demise of having good investigative reporters and places for their work to be read,” she said. “I’m hearing from people who are reading newspapers, and they don’t like this whole thing.”

Gregg Leslie, legal defense director at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in Washington, D.C., said legal ads provide one-stop shopping for taxpayers.

“In this proposed change, taxpayers are going to have to search for this information on any number of government websites, trying to figure out where it is, rather than having it centralized in one public form, which looks like a big downside,’’ he said. “That hurts transparency by making things more obscure."

The legal notices bill is scheduled to be considered in the Assembly Appropriations and Senate State Government, Wagering, Tourism and Historic Preservation committees on Thursday. If successful there, the measure could then be passed by both houses during voting sessions on Monday.

Asked about the apparent rush to move the bill through the Legislature, Prieto said it was just “the nature of the beast” of how business is conducted in the State House.

“In Trenton we either move lightning speed or we move slow as snails,” he said.

Nicholas Pugliese writes for The Record and Bob Jordan writes for The Asbury Park Press