30:4C-26 Placing child in resource family home or institution.

26. a. Whenever the circumstances of a child are such that his needs cannot be adequately met in his own home, the division may effect his placement in a resource family home, with or without payment of board, in a group home, or in an appropriate institution if such care is deemed essential for him. The division shall make every reasonable effort to select a resource family home, a group home or an institution of the same religious faith as the parent or parents of such child.

b. Whenever the division places any child, as provided by this section, in any municipality and county of this State, the child shall be deemed a resident of such municipality and county for all purposes except school funding, and he shall be entitled to the use and benefit of all health, recreational, vocational and other facilities of such municipality and county in the same manner and extent as any other child living in such municipality and county.

c. Whenever the division shall place any child, as provided by this section, in any school district, the child shall be entitled to the educational benefits of the district determined pursuant to section 3 of P.L.2010, c.69 (C.30:4C-26b); provided, however, that the district of residence, as determined by the Commissioner of Education pursuant to law, shall be responsible for paying, as applicable, tuition and transportation costs for such child to the district in which he is placed.

d. No municipality shall enact a planning or zoning ordinance governing the use of land by, or for, single family dwellings which shall, by any of its terms or provisions or by any rule or regulation adopted in accordance therewith, discriminate between children who are members of such single families by reason of their relationship by blood, marriage or adoption, children placed with such families in such dwellings by the division or other entity designated by the Commissioner of Children and Families, and children placed pursuant to law with families in single family dwellings known as group homes.

Any planning or zoning ordinance, heretofore or hereafter enacted by a municipality, which violates the provisions of this section, shall be invalid and inoperative.

L.1951, c.138, s.26; amended 1962, c.197, s.27; 1974, c.178, s.2; 1979, c.207, s.18; 2004, c.130, s.58; 2006, c.47, s.130; 2010, c.69, s.2.