The New Jersey State Bar Association (NJSBA) Board of Trustees accepted a clean audit and supported several pending bills at its meeting earlier this month.
The trustees voted to support the following pieces of pending legislation:
- A-5468 (Conaway)/S-3344 (Rice) requires financial institutions to release records to adult protective services when there is suspected fraud of vulnerable adult or senior customers, and allows adult protective services to release the same records to a law enforcement agency if necessary. The NJSBA will urge legislators to clarify whether the bill would simply impose a requirement that financial institutions respond to requests from a county adult protective services provider, or whether it places an affirmative duty on financial institutions to assess which clients appear to be vulnerable or senior customers and monitor the transactions of all such clients.
- S-3016 (Gopal) authorizes innocent spouse relief under the gross income tax.
- A-3689 (Vainieri Huttle)/S-3140 (Turner) clarifies a juvenile’s right to attorney representation and requires a 12-month judicial review hearing when a juvenile is placed out of the home. The NJSBA will seek to work with the bill’s sponsors to ensure the measure does not affect the existing statutory authorities that are in place.
Public accounting firm Withum conducted an audit of the NJSBA’s most recent fiscal year. The auditors said they will issue an unmodified opinion, which provides the highest level of assurance that the financial statements are accurate and free of any misstatements. The auditors also confirmed that all policies and procedures are up-to-date with current accounting standards.
The audit did show an expected reduction in revenue and expenses as a result of the cancellation of all in-person events for the final quarter of the fiscal year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Association has a roughly $10.2 million annual budget to serve about 16,000 members, and offer hundreds of educational programs through the New Jersey Institute for Continuing Legal Education.