§ 40A:5-48 — "User-friendly," plain language budget summary forms.

39. a. The Local Finance Board shall promulgate "user-friendly," plain language budget summary forms for the use of counties, municipalities, local authorities, and fire districts. The board shall also promulgate a procedure for the submission by each of these local government units of the required budget summary form to the Division of Local Government Services in the Department of Community Affairs following the adoption of the annual budget. b. The plain language budget summary shall provide the public with information in summary form about the budget of the local unit and shall include, in addition to an abbreviated version of the formal budget adopted by the local unit, such statistical information as the board determines to be useful for the public's understanding of the local unit's fiscal matters and condition, and shall also include, but shall not be limited to the following information, for both the local unit's current budget year and the previous budget year, as the Local Finance Board determines appropriate to the local unit: all line items of appropriation aggregated by service type; the property tax rate; the property tax collection rate; the assessed value and taxable value of all real property located in the local unit; the amount of bonded indebtedness of the local unit; revenues by major category; description of unusual revenues or appropriations, with a description of the circumstances of the revenues or appropriations; a list of shared service agreements in which the local unit is participating; and the number and amount of outstanding long-term tax exemptions and abatements, and the amount of revenue derived therefrom. c. The plain language budget summary shall be submitted to the division in such form as determined by the Local Finance Board, and, upon its receipt of the summary, the division shall make the summary available to the public through an Internet website maintained by the division. The information on the website shall be presented as data that can be downloaded by the public for comparative purposes using commonly-used software. L.2007, c.63, s.39.