54:50-9.1 Report to aid study of past, present discrimination in State employment and contracting, tax information, certain.

1. a. The Secretary of State, in overseeing the fulfillment of those duties assigned to the Governor's Study Commission on Discrimination in State Employment and Contracting, established by Executive Order No. 112 of 2000, may request that the Director of the Division of Taxation prepare a report which includes only that information which is necessary in order to allow for an assessment of the nature and scope of any past or present discrimination in State employment and contracting. This information shall be limited to the name of a taxpayer that is a vendor; the vendor's trade name; the vendor's address, county and municipality code, business code, size code indicating the number of employees, ownership code, standard industrial classification code, North American industry classification system code, business start date, business end date, and bond information; information on any subsidiaries of the vendor; and the income of the vendor. No additional tax information as it pertains to identifiable individuals, businesses or vendors shall be provided to the Secretary of State.

Upon receiving the request of the Secretary of State, the Director of the Division of Taxation shall forthwith prepare the report and forward it to the Secretary of State.

b. Upon receipt of the report, the Secretary of State shall make the report available to any consultant or agents and employees thereof who may be under contract with the commission in order to fulfill its responsibilities under the Executive Order. The consultant, and its agents and employees, shall be specifically subjected to the confidentiality provisions of R.S.54:50-8, including criminal penalties for unauthorized use and disclosure of information obtained from the report. Each such principal, agent and employee shall acknowledge by affidavit: receipt of a copy of the confidentiality provisions of the State Uniform Tax Procedure Law, R.S.54:48-1 et seq.; an understanding of the obligation to maintain, and agreement to maintain, the confidentiality of taxpayer information; and an awareness that violation of the confidentiality provisions is punishable by law. The consultant shall furnish the director with the affidavit of each of its principals, agents and employees before gaining access to or examining the report.

c. In the event any portion of a study based on the information obtained pursuant to subsection a. of this section is challenged in the context of an administrative or judicial proceeding contesting the validity or accuracy of statistics, summaries or aggregates compiled from such information to create, update or expand a State study, and when it has been established that such information was actually used to create, update or expand the challenged State study, such information shall not be compelled through discovery or introduced into evidence without a prior court order sealing the record, entered after in camera examination of the relevant information sought. When appropriate, information from the records and files in the director's custody that is not relevant to the issues in the administrative or judicial proceeding shall be redacted or excluded.

d. Upon its completion, copies of the report of the Governor's Study Commission on Discrimination in State Employment and Contracting shall be transmitted to the Senate President, the Speaker of the General Assembly, the Minority Leader of the Senate, the Minority Leader of the General Assembly, each member of the Senate State Government Committee or its successor, each member of the Assembly Commerce and Economic Development Committee or its successor and any other member of the State Senate or General Assembly with an interest in the commission's report.

L.2004,c.79,s.1.