52:13H-21 Findings, declarations relative to unfunded mandates and local governments and school districts.

1. The Legislature finds and declares:

Over the past four decades, prior to adoption of the constitutional amendment prohibiting unfunded State mandates on local government, the State routinely and systematically imposed greater and greater numbers of mandates, orders, directives and burdens on local government. This web of mandates and burdens came about as the result of the enactment and adoption of a plethora of unrelated laws and regulations addressing many and diverse issues. While these actions by State government occurred in order to address a variety of public concerns, they all shared a common philosophical underpinning: the mandatory implementation of State policy directives by local government officials.

While the overwhelming majority of these statutes and regulations was established by sincere-minded and well-intentioned public officials in order to address legitimate public concerns, the collective regulatory weight of these mandates on local officials continues to be a matter of deep concern and a subject that cries for legislative relief.

In response to this decades long pattern of seemingly inexorable increases in burdensome mandates from Trenton, local officials repeatedly petition the Legislature for relief. In response to entreaties of local officials, various committees of several Legislatures have determined to continue to address the problem of burdensome mandates on an expedited basis through the enactment of omnibus acts that repeal or modify many of those mandates, resolve administrative ambiguities and encourage more businesslike practices. This is the third such omnibus mandate relief act.

L.2000,c.126,s.1.