Vin Gopal – Our Successes During the Lame Duck Session and Beyond

It is gratifying to report that many of our bills have been signed into law or progressed through Senate committees during the past two years, including some signed during the lame duck session.

Here are highlights of some of the bills that have become law or are pending final committee approval, which focus on keeping costs down for residents while making services more available.

School funding is one of the most vexing challenges to educators and property taxpayers. Our legislation, S3917, which would make changes to school funding law and Educational Adequacy Report, also establishes the Special Education Funding Review Task Force. The bill addresses extraordinary special education aid and vocational expansion stabilization aid, and establishes a new category of state school aid known as reduction adjustment aid. The legislation requires the state to increase the appropriation from year to year, or otherwise ensure that the percentage of a school district’s costs reimbursed through extraordinary special education aid increases compared to the previous fiscal year.

The bill also requires the Department of Education to make available on its website, in a user-friendly manner, how aid to each school district is calculated with explanations of the variables used to determine the district’s aid.

Another of our bills, S2644, was signed into law earlier in the legislative session and requires the DOE to establish a Working Group on Student Literacy; mandates universal literacy screenings for kindergarten through grade three students, and requires professional development for school district employees.

The Working Group group will provide recommendations to the department for implementing evidence-based literacy strategies, including reliable ways to achieve universal literacy screening, and high-quality literacy instructional materials. The DOT commissioner will appoint at least one parent of an enrolled student, and literacy experts, and practitioners with demonstrated success implementing evidence-based literacy strategies to the commission.

We also took steps to address the rising costs of electricity with S4530, which requires the Board of Public Utilities to revise community solar program targets and open registration for an additional 3,000 megawatts of community solar projects. Addressing high energy costs is a top priority for our office.

Our legislation also has addressed the availability and affordability of healthcare services. One of the new laws we sponsored, S2988, extends pay parity to health providers of telemedicine and telehealth until July 1, 2026. This legislation will require insurance companies to provide coverage and payment for telemedicine or telehealth and reimburse healthcare providers at the same rate as for in-person services. This is critical for people who are sick but cannot get to the doctor’s office.

Another of our bills-now-law, S3098, requires health insurers to provide coverage for biomarker precision medical testing. This important innovation in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer and other diseases is a laboratory method that uses a sample of blood, tissue, or other body fluid to look for genes, proteins, and other molecules that may indicate a disease or condition.

In some cases, biomarker testing may provide information that enables patients to forgo ineffective treatments and eliminate their potentially harmful, life-altering side effects. Not only does it save lives, it also reduces healthcare costs.

As we begin the year ahead, my Legislative District 11 partners, Assemblywomen Margie Donlon and Luanne Peterpaul, and I will continue to aggressively pursue ways of making life in Monmouth County and New Jersey more affordable, fairer and more equitable for residents. We will always be willing to work with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to achieve these goals.