Dear Mayor:

In our January 6, 2006 letter to you on the new Pay to Play, we informed you that a Local Finance Notice on the subject would be forthcoming from the Division of Local Government Services. In fact, Local Finance Notice 2006-1 has been issued to provide guidance to local units about adopting their own pay-to-play laws and a new required vendor disclosure that affects all contracting agencies.  Additional information on the Pay-to-Play law is on the Division's web site at www.nj.gov/dca/lgs/p2p.

Other DLGS news of importance follows.

1) Annual LOSAP CPI Award Increase Announcement: Local Finance Notice 2006-2 contains information on the allowable annual increase in Length of Service for municipalities and fire districts. Details are at: http://www.state.nj.us/dca/lgs/lfns/05lfns/2006-2.doc.

2) EITC Notice to Eligible Employees - State law (P.L. 2005, c.210) now requires all public (and private) employers to give written notification of the availability of Federal and NJ earned income tax credits to potentially eligible employees.  The Notice is given using forms developed by the State Treasurer. Forms must accompany the W-2 forms. The form and an explanatory letter are found at:
www.state.nj.us/treasury/taxation/pdf/eitcnotice.pdf.   

3) Contracts Law Amendments: Two recent laws amended the Local Public Contracts Law and the Public School Contracts Law. The number of days for advertisement of bid specifications and addenda was made a standard 7 days and the LPCL now requires contracts for third party Uniform Construction Code inspection services to be publicly bid.  Details are found at: http://www.state.nj.us/dca/lgs/lfns/05lfns/2005-33.doc.