LEGISLATIVE FISCAL ESTIMATE
[First Reprint]
SENATE, No. 1000
STATE OF NEW JERSEY
220th LEGISLATURE
DATED: AUGUST 17, 2023
SUMMARY
Synopsis: Requires domestic violence orders to be issued in other languages in
addition to English under certain circumstances.
Type of Impact: Annual State expenditure increase.
Agencies Affected: The Judiciary; Department of Law and Public Safety.
Office of Legislative Services Estimate
Fiscal Impact Annual
State Cost Increase Indeterminate
 The Office of Legislative Services (OLS) finds that this bill will result in annual cost increases
for the State. The bill requires the Attorney General’s Office in the Department of Law and
Public Safety to prepare the notice providing domestic violence victims with their rights in
English, Spanish, and 10 additional high demand languages spoken in the State. The Judiciary
would be required to prepare standard templates for temporary restraining orders and final
restraining orders in English, Spanish, and the other high demand languages identified in its
language access plan as approved by the Supreme Court.
 Regarding the Attorney General’s Office, the OLS notes the Department of Law and Public
Safety would need to have approximately 250 words translated per document and, based on a
State contractor’s quoted price of $.15 per word for document translation services, this would
result in an estimated cost of approximately $37 per notice for the first time a document is
needed in a language other than English or Spanish. The OLS does not have information on
how many such notices would need to be translated in a given fiscal year.
 Also in the way of context, the OLS notes that the Judiciary provided an estimate on a previous
version of this bill, in which the Administrative Office of the Courts would have to meet all
the requirements of the bill, including preparing the notices for domestic violence victims. In
that estimate, the Judiciary anticipated first year expenses exceeding $15.5 million to address
all the requirements of this legislation, and $6.5 million annually in subsequent fiscal
Office of Legislative Services Legislative Budget and Finance Office
State House Annex Phone (609) 847-3105
P.O. Box 068 Fax (609) 777-2442
Trenton, New Jersey 08625 www.njleg.state.nj.us
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years. The costs of providing domestic violence restraining orders in multiple languages and
the Statewide information technology system needed to make the various documents available
on demand in each required language would necessitate the reprograming of the electronic
temporary restraining order application, as it is written in an older architecture that would need
reengineering, according to the Judiciary. The Judiciary added that there would be an increase
in court time as a result of the bill.
 The Judiciary noted that it is unable to estimate with any certainty the number of cases that
would require notices and specific orders in other languages; as such, the OLS is unable to
confirm or refute the Judiciary’s estimate.
BILL DESCRIPTION
The bill requires that certain domestic violence restraining orders and notices to domestic
violence victims be issued in other languages in addition to English.
Currently, the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act (P.L.1991, c.261) provides that a law
enforcement officer is required to provide a domestic violence victim with a notice of the victim’s
rights, including the right to go to court to obtain a temporary restraining order and the right to file
criminal charges. The statute also provides that the notice is required to be written in English and
Spanish. The bill expands this requirement to provide that the notice be prepared by the Attorney
General’s Office in English, Spanish, and 10 additional high demand languages spoken in the
State.
Under the bill, the Administrative Office of the Courts is required to prepare standard templates
for temporary restraining orders in English, Spanish, and the other high demand languages
identified in its Language Access Plan as approved by the Supreme Court. The templates will be
available for law enforcement, judges of the Municipal Court, and judges and staff of the Superior
Court to provide to the victim and defendant when issuing temporary restraining orders.
Current law also provides that an order granting emergency relief, together with the complaint
or complaints, is to be forwarded immediately to the appropriate law enforcement agency for
immediate service on the defendant and to the law enforcement agency of the municipality in
which the plaintiff resides or is sheltered. Under the bill, a member of the law enforcement agency
additionally is required to serve the defendant with a copy of the translated order, if applicable.
The bill requires the Administrative Office of the Courts to prepare standard templates for
permanent restraining orders in English, Spanish, and the other high demand languages identified
in the Language Access Plan.
FISCAL ANALYSIS
EXECUTIVE BRANCH
None received.
JUDICIAL BRANCH
The Judiciary provided information on a previous version of this legislation, Senate Bill No.
1000 of the 2022-2023 Session. The OLS emphasizes that in the original version of Senate Bill
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No. 1000 on which the Judiciary provided the estimate, the Administrative Office of the Courts
would have to meet all the requirements of the bill, including preparing the notices for domestic
violence victims. The information the Judiciary provided on the previous version of Senate Bill
No. 1000 is reproduced in part and summarized below to provide context in terms of the potential
cost of the legislation.
The Judiciary indicated that although a full estimate of the bill’s fiscal impact is not feasible,
it would anticipate incurring expenses exceeding $15,500,000 to address the requirements of this
legislation. In addition, the Judiciary anticipates expenditures exceeding $6,500,000 would be
recurring each fiscal year. The bill would require temporary restraining orders and final restraining
orders be issued in the primary language or languages used by both the plaintiff and the defendant.
The bill provides that the Administrative Office of the Courts is required to prepare standard forms
in English, Spanish and 10 additional high demand languages spoken in the State.
A United States Census Bureau report released in 2018 found that the following were the most
common languages spoken in New Jersey other than English, Spanish, and American Sign
Language: Russian, Arabic, Hindi, Polish, Gujarati, Korean, Filipino, Tagalog, Portuguese and
Chinese.
Based on the languages for which the Judiciary most often provides interpreting services,
certain form orders and documents are currently available in English, Spanish, Haitian Creole,
Korean, Polish, and Portuguese. In addition, general informational documents describing
temporary restraining orders are provided in the aforementioned languages as well as in Arabic.
Although unable to estimate with any certainty the number of cases which would require
notices and specific orders in other languages, the Judiciary believes the number of cases the
proposed legislation will impact would be substantial. The Judiciary’s domestic violence case type
operates 24 hours per day, 7 days per week in all 21 county courts and all 500 plus municipal
courts. Statistics on the number of restraining orders issued in calendar year 2020 indicate that
26,217 temporary restraining orders were issued Statewide: 19,288 were issued by municipal
courts and 6,929 were issued by the Superior Court. In addition, another 3,453 final restraining
orders were issued. The Judiciary statistical report for court interpreting services for FY 2021
shows the Judiciary completed 43,959 interpreting activities in 95 different languages for that
fiscal year.
Interpreters render a spoken or signed message in one language to an equivalent spoken or
signed message in another language; translators render a written message from one language to an
equivalent written message in another language. The Judiciary credentials court interpreters but
does not credential translators. The differences between the skill sets, training and credentials
needed for the two tasks are substantial. Translation of any Judiciary document from English into
another language is a complex task. Inclusion in the Judiciary’s Registry of Court Interpreting
Resources does not provide any confirmation of the Judiciary’s ability to provide accurate
translation services. As such, court interpreters translate only short and simple documents. The
Language Services Section tests staff interpreters to approve those who pass for vicinage-specific
translation work. Certified translation requires significant cost and time. Extreme care must be
taken to ensure that no change in meaning, or intent occurs in translation. Significant resources
would be required to implement measures that will ensure each provision is translated accurately
and continues to reflect the same meaning and intent as the English version.
For each unique document and language, a team of certified consultants would be required to
provide an accurate translation. Once completed, the Judiciary would require a multi-review
process of each converted document to ensure the translated document’s accuracy and that the
intent and meaning of the document did not change from the English text. To achieve this, the
Judiciary would appoint and support a translation review team (for each individual language and
document) which would be tasked with ensuring the accuracy of any translated document. The
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translation review team would be staffed by both Judiciary staff and certified translators (who
would be separate and apart from those translators completing the actual translation) to ensure that
any translation completely and accurately reflects the English version.
For each order to be made available Statewide in each required language, the Judiciary would
need to develop, test, implement and support a statewide on-demand information technology
system. The system would make the various documents available on demand to court staff
Statewide in the each required language. The Judiciary anticipated costs of $1,400,000 to analyze,
develop, integrate, and test such system. These tasks are anticipated to take a minimum of 12
months to complete. The Judiciary would also incur system and hardware costs of approximately
$2,000,000 for the system and an additional $400,000 would be incurred for annual maintenance-
related costs that would ensure, for example, that the system is kept updated and running properly.
There would also be a cost to reprogram the Judiciary’s electronic temporary restraining order
application because the application is written in an older architecture that would need
reengineering to accommodate order translation as well as notice and other communication
translations. It is estimated that a rewrite of a significant portion of electronic temporary restraining
order application would cost between $6 million and $8 million.
Family Court Staff would also be required to process and disseminate these notices and orders
in other languages. This bill could potentially also result in additional court time when a motion is
made concerning these orders in other languages. To address these motions would require more
staff at every level, including clerical, court staff, sheriff’s officers, court hearing officers, and
judges.
Recognizing that the Judiciary’s domestic violence case type operates 24 hours per day, 7 days
per week in all 21 county courts and in all of the more than 500 municipal courts to issue
approximately 30,000 restraining orders per year, and that each document has non-standard
narrative sections which are unique to each particular case, the Judiciary would incur significant
cost to ensure each party is provided with the complete document(s) accurately translated into the
appropriate language(s). Annual projected costs to ensure these interpreting services are available
24 hours a day, 7 days a week are approximately $6,100,000.
OFFICE OF LEGISLATIVE SERVICES
The OLS finds that this bill will result in annual cost increases for the State. The bill requires
the Attorney General’s Office in the Department of Law and Public Safety to prepare the notice
providing domestic violence victims with their rights in English, Spanish, and 10 additional high
demand languages spoken in the State. The Judiciary would be required to prepare standard
templates for temporary restraining orders and final restraining orders in English, Spanish, and the
other high demand languages identified in its language access plan as approved by the Supreme
Court.
Regarding the Attorney General’s Office, the OLS notes the Department of Law and Public
Safety would need to have approximately 250 words translated per document and, based on a State
contractor’s quoted price of $.15 per word for document translation services, this would result in
an estimated cost of approximately $37 per notice for the first time a document is needed in a
language other than English or Spanish. The OLS does not have information on how many such
notices would need to be translated in a given fiscal year.
Also in the way of context, the OLS notes that the Judiciary provided an estimate on a previous
version of this bill, Senate Bill No. 1000 of the 2022-2023 Session, in which the Judiciary would
have to meet all the requirements of the bill. As noted above, the Judiciary estimate anticipates
first year expenses exceeding $15.5 million to address all the requirements of this legislation, and
$6.5 million annually in subsequent fiscal years. The costs of providing domestic violence
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restraining orders in multiple languages and the Statewide information technology system needed
to make the various documents available on demand in each required language would necessitate
the reprograming of the electronic temporary restraining order application, as it is written in an
older architecture that would need reengineering, according to the Judiciary. The Judiciary added
that there would be an increase in court time as a result of the bill.
As noted above, the Judiciary is unable to estimate with any certainty the number of cases that
would require notices and specific orders in other languages. As such, the OLS is unable to confirm
or refute the Judiciary’s estimate. Since the Judiciary already provides forms in English, Spanish,
Haitian Creole, Korean, Polish, and Portuguese, it cannot be said with certainty what other
languages would require translation services. In the 2022 court year, there were a total of 41,980
domestic violence filings and 6,396 reopened domestic violence cases, according to the 2021-2022
Judiciary Annual Report.
Section: Judiciary
Analyst: Anuja Pande Joshi
Senior Fiscal Analyst
Approved: Thomas Koenig
Legislative Budget and Finance Officer
This legislative fiscal estimate has been produced by the Office of Legislative Services due to the
failure of the Executive Branch to respond to our request for a fiscal note.
This fiscal estimate has been prepared pursuant to P.L.1980, c.67 (C.52:13B-6 et seq.).


Statutes affected:
Introduced: 2C:25-23, 2C:25-28, 2C:25-29