OPRA tracker

Records we’ve requested

Public-records requests Jersey Intel has filed under New Jersey’s Open Public Records Act. Subjects stay private until the story runs. When agencies stall, we report it.

  • NJ Schools Development Authority Filed Oct. 8 Response due ~Oct. 20 Pending
  • Essex County Filed Oct. 8 Response due Oct. 21 Pending
  • City of Newark (3 requests) Filed Oct. 8 Response due ~Oct. 19–20 Pending
  • Bergen County Filed Oct. 8 Response due ~Oct. 19–20 Partial
  • City of Hackensack Filed Oct. 9 Response due ~Oct. 20 Pending
  • City of Plainfield Filed Oct. 9 Response due ~Oct. 21–22 Pending
  • Bergen County Sheriff's Office Filed Oct. 9 Response due ~Oct. 21–22 Pending
  • Passaic County Filed Oct. 12 Response due ~Oct. 22 Pending

Updated Oct. 12, 2026

Statewide

Accountability

Senate President’s new solar bill would let landfill and mine projects add ‘non-contiguous’ land, with no cap

October 9, 2026 · Jersey Intel Staff

S4729, introduced by Senate President Nicholas Scutari on Oct. 5 and approved by a Senate committee Oct. 8, would let community solar projects on landfills, brownfields, contaminated sites and mines include ‘related, non-contiguous tracts of land’ and bar the BPU from limiting how much. The September solar law allowed only ‘associated or contiguous’ land, and only for public remote net metering.

Accountability

Third try at Bridgeton High comes in $7M higher; SDA board packet called a protest pending six days after SDA denied it

October 8, 2026 · Jersey Intel Staff

The NJ Schools Development Authority’s Oct. 7 board packet recommends Ernest Bock & Sons at $80,985,000 for Bridgeton High School, the project’s third procurement and about $7 million above the bid SDA recommended in March. The budget is now $94,971,000, up from $49,240,000 in 2022. The packet calls a rival’s protest pending; an SDA decision dated Oct. 1 denied it. The resolution’s operative clause says $80,895,000. The same agenda carried a $1,519,054 Bock change order in Trenton.

Accountability

Trenton, out of the State Health Benefits Plan, tells state board its health costs hit $73M; $18M cap waiver passes 5–2

October 8, 2026 · Jersey Intel Staff

At the Sept. 9 Local Finance Board meeting, Trenton’s business administrator testified health costs were $56 million in 2025 and $73 million in 2026. The mayor said the city withdrew from the State Health Benefits Plan and self-insures. The board approved an $18 million cap waiver 5–2. The city’s April budget lists its entire insurance line at $71.7 million, and Trenton is back Oct. 14 seeking approval for $20 million in bonds.

Accountability

State picked Thales to replace MVC’s license-system vendor on lowest price in May. The governor’s voter-roll statements still don’t name it.

October 8, 2026 · Jersey Intel Staff

A June 11, 2026 Treasury decision names Thales DIS USA as the State’s pick to replace IDEMIA’s MVC driver-license system, chosen on “the lowest overall pricing.” The bid was issued in January 2025, before Gov. Sherrill took office. Her July 21, July 28 and Oct. 7 statements on the voter-registration errors don’t name Thales. The new bid says MVC and the Division of Elections “will provide all verbiage and workflows for the signature pad logic.”

Accountability

Hess consent judgment puts Arthur Kill claims on hold until a formal damage assessment, and only in a multi-defendant suit

October 8, 2026 · Jersey Intel Staff

The Hess consent judgment carves the Arthur Kill and lower Smith Creek out of the $19.5 million natural resource damages settlement for the former Port Reading refinery. That is where the State says the 1969 spill went. The State can’t sue over those waters until a formal damage assessment is done, any such suit must name multiple defendants, and Hess can argue a 2013 Occidental settlement already covered them. The Oct. 5 announcement didn’t mention the assessment condition or the Occidental defense.

Legislature

Ballot question for a $2,500 veterans’ tax break leaves out its $181.8 million-a-year cost to the State

October 8, 2026 · Jersey Intel Staff

Jersey Intel read SCR96 and its fiscal estimate. The ballot question would ask voters to raise the veterans’ property tax deduction from $250 to $2,500, but it doesn’t mention that the State reimburses towns for it. OLS puts that cost at $72.8 million in FY 2029, rising to $181.8 million in FY 2032. The Executive Branch never answered OLS’s fiscal-note request.

Accountability

AG Davenport joins First Circuit challenge to NHTSA’s weakened CAFE rule

October 2, 2026 · Jersey Intel Staff

AG Jennifer Davenport joined a multistate First Circuit petition challenging NHTSA’s SAFE III rule weakening CAFE standards for model years 2022–2031. The AG release claims nearly $220 billion in lost national fuel savings and an EV-blind baseline — but offers no New Jersey-specific pump-cost model.

Accountability

Sherrill seats SHBP reform group — with Aetna, Horizon, and Optum Rx at the table

October 2, 2026 · Jersey Intel Staff

Governor Sherrill launched an SHBP Reform Working Group that includes current vendors Aetna, Horizon, and Optum Rx among stakeholders advising on contracting, networks, pricing, and plan design — with recommendations advisory and detailed design deferred into 2027 after the state already waived 2027 contribution increases.