On August 30, 2015, I posted an article showing that three South Jersey townships (Fairfield Township in Cumberland County, Upper Pittsgrove Township in Salem County and Elk Township in Gloucester County) were being penalized by their insurance carrier for not conforming to the insurer’s requirements related to having updated written policies governing matters such as sexual harassment, employee complaint investigations and conflicts of interest.  As described in that article, these townships’ noncompliance is exposing their taxpayers to up to an extra $430,000 loss for each lawsuit for wrongful termination, sexual harassment, discrimination, invasion of privacy or similar claims.

Today, I learned that the following municipalities and other agencies are also non-compliant:

Wall Township (Monmouth)
South Amboy Borough (Middlesex)
Roosevelt Borough (Monmouth)
Spring Lake Borough (Monmouth)
Downe Township (Cumberland)
Egg Harbor Township (Atlantic)
Bass River Township (Burlington)
Florence Township (Burlington)
Wrightstown Borough (Burlington)
North Bergen Township(Hudson)
North Hudson Fire & Rescue (Hudson)
Carteret Housing Authority (Middlesex)
Morristown Housing Authority (Morris)
Neptune City Housing Authority (Monmouth)
Neptune Housing Authority (Monmouth)
Orange Housing Authority (Essex)
Summit Housing Authority (Union)
North Bergen Municipal Utilities Authority (Hudson)
Evesham Township Fire District (Burlington)

I have identified these municipalities and agencies by examining the Municipal Excess Liability Joint Insurance Fund’s compliance lists and determining whether there is a “yes” or “no” in the compliance field.  In the following case, neither a “yes” nor a “no” appears in that field–rather the field is left blank.  I am looking into what this means and will report on it in a future blog article.

Update 09/28/15.  I was informed by Bradford C. Stokes, Account Executive for PERMA Risk Management Services that the agencies listed below which have neither a “yes” nor a “no” in the compliance field only have coverage for workers compensation from their respective joint insurance funds and have secured their Employment Practice Liability (EPL) coverage elsewhere. For this reason, the $20,000 or $100,000 deductibles are not applicable for these agencies.  The lack of a compliance field entry for these agencies should cause no negative inference to be drawn.

Atlantic City Housing Authority (Atlantic)
Boonton Housing Authority (Morris)
Camden Housing Authority (Camden)
Collingswood Housing Authority (Camden)
Dover Housing Authority (Morris)
East Orange Housing Authority (Essex)
Irvington Housing Authority (Essex)
Jersey City Housing Authority (Hudson)
Long Branch Housing Authority (Monmouth)
Penns Grove Housing Authority (Salem)
Perth Amboy Housing Authority (Middlesex)
Plainfield Housing Authority (Union)
Princeton Housing Authority (Mercer)
Trenton Housing Authority (Mercer)
Union City Housing Authority (Hudson)
Nutley Board of Education (Essex)
Manchester Regional High School District (Passaic)

Chairman of the New Jersey Libertarian Party's Open Government Advocacy Project. Please send all comments to [email protected]