We were, of course, very disappointed to see that the State Legislature last week voted overwhelmingly to allow local governmental bodies to stop publishing public notices in print newspapers like The Westfield Leader and HAWK and, instead they are required to post them on their own official websites by March 1, 2026. Governor Murphy signed the legislation into law soon after.

To enhance transparency, New Jersey for decades has required public bodies to publish official notices in newspapers of meeting dates, planning and zoning notices, certain contract bids and awards, ordinances, annual budgets, professional services solicitations and awards, sheriff sales, certain legal documents and court orders. With the press acting as both a watchdog and a skeptic, holding the government accountable and ensuring transparency, the intent was for those notices to be published in a forum independent of the government.

The new law in no way prohibits government agencies from also publishing the legal notices in print and online in newspapers like ours across the state. So we ask our local officials to do the right thing and keep the public informed, remain transparent and keep publishing.

The end of The Star-Ledger’s daily print edition in February left several municipalities and counties without a newspaper in which to publish their official notices. The New Jersey Press Association worked tirelessly to draft and propose a bill that solved the print/ online notice quandary, but that bill languished in the State Senate. A bill many of you called and wrote in support of — for that, we thank you.

And we’re not alone in believing this new law is a bad move.

Assemblyman Brian Rumpf, a Somerset Republican, calls the new law a disservice to those who rely on physical publications to get their community news. He thinks a reasonable compromise could have been to keep publishing official notices in weekly and monthly newspapers, many of which are free at local stores or available at public libraries. Brett Ainsworth, president of the New Jersey Press Association, said the new law “diminishes transparency and erodes trust in government.”

A number of local governments, to no one’s surprise, passed resolutions earlier this year urging legislators to enact the legislation ending the requirement to publish legal notices in print newspapers. Those resolutions stated that local governments, “should no longer be required to subsidize the newspaper industry with revenues collected from publishing legal notices in the press.”

The reasoning behind the move is that it will save taxpayer dollars, but in early May, we published the results of a review of the pages in The Leader and HAWK last year which revealed that, most municipal and county governments spent just several thousand dollars each on public notices in 2024. Those expenses were truly minuscule — tiny fractions of a percent, i.e., two, three or four ten-thousandths of a percent — when looked at in relation to their multi-million-dollar operating budgets.

Last November, in a front-page editorial, we wrote that, “the idea that government entities should be allowed to publish notices on their own websites is absurd,” adding that there would be “no way to tell when they publish them or if they met the time requirements.” Both of our newspapers are classified as legal newspapers; as a result, we receive budgets, ordinances, meeting notices and agendas “in a timely, legally prescribed fashion before they are voted on by a governing body. We share them with you, the public, through your normal course of reading both in print and online. This gives us all time to ask questions, do research and be prepared for hearings to come. It prevents elected officials from sneaking big expenditures, contract awards and new laws through the process without independent sets of eyes on it.”

Will the new requirements actually enhance government transparency or will they allow governments to play fast and loose when it comes to truly keeping taxpayers fully informed? Ask your elected officials to keep publishing the notices, because it’s not about subsidizing newspapers — it’s about providing transparency and a service to the public.