Flying colors

Good morning!

What do all these things have in common: inflatable bounce houses, DJs, dirt bike demonstrations, ice cream, movie nights, graduation parties, college-prep programs, pet sitting.

You probably would not have guessed that these are some of the things New Jersey counties and towns bought using opioid settlement funds in the last year.

In 2022, New Jersey announced it was getting $600M+ from settlements with opioid makers and distributors, and every year it requires those who get the money to report how they’ve spent it. Dana DiFilippo spent the better part of her Thursday reviewing the stack of reports the state released on the recent spending.

When then-Gov. Phil Murphy announced the settlement, he said the money “will fund state and local programs focused on treatment, prevention, and other strategies to combat the opioid epidemic in the state.” You know, like bouncy castles.

Advocates in this arena are a bit peeved.

Amanda Devecka-Rinear, executive director of the New Jersey Organizing Project, told Dana, “We’ve all lost someone to an overdose, and many of those people were lost because they were prescribed a drug that Big Pharma knew was addictive and did anyway. This money is an attempt to rectify that, and so using this funding for something other than expenditures that address the overdose crisis is an absolute disrespect and dishonor to the people we’ve lost and will lose.”

Read more from Dana.

Newark: From Samantha Olander and our friends at Chalkbeat Newark, a bombshell of a story out of Newark: A Thursday report about Newark’s schools from State Auditor David J. Kashack identified millions of dollars in excess state aid, questionable spending, and gaps in employee background checks. Here’s how the school district announced this news:

The district’s leaders must have read a different document than everyone else, because Kashack said he was referring some matters to the state’s criminal justice division. Flying colors!

Commentary: The U.S. Supreme Court has halted a Trump administration plan to revamp mail-in voting in a way that one unnamed whistleblower has claimed would cause chaos and lead to scores of disenfranchised voters. But I’m still anxious that the president will direct the U.S. Postal Service to do something prior to Election Day to screw with mail-in votes, so I think anyone who intends to vote by mail should do it ASAP.

AI: Sen. Andrew Zwicker (D) is behind a bill he said would curb the use of artificial intelligence in the workplace.  “We have never seen a disruptive piece of technology like this before. You can go back to the steam engine, the internet, the light bulb — pick what you want, and nothing has moved at the speed of AI,” Zwicker said during a Senate Labor Committee hearing Thursday. The panel advanced the bill over the objections of business groups that said it would restrict the use of commonly used automated systems.

Labor: The Sherrill administration allowed regulations concerning New Jersey’s independent contractor test to move forward on Thursday, despite a push from business groups and the Senate president to delay them again. Labor officials say the regulations merely codify existing practices, but business groups and some independent contractors say they fear they will be forced to change how they do business as a result.

McIver: Rep. LaMonica McIver (D) announced Thursday that she has given birth to a daughter, notable because McIver is also set to stand trial soon on federal assault charges related to a melee outside Newark migrant jail Delaney Hall last year. “Being a mom is one of the greatest joys of my life, and I’m beyond grateful,” McIver said on social media.

Data centers: From Evan Simon at Floodlight: “DataOne, the Microsoft-linked New Jersey datacenter recently hit with a $1 million fine for running unpermitted generators, emitted large amounts of health-harming air pollution for nearly a year before state regulators stepped in, according to public records obtained by Floodlight.”

Election 2026: David Wildstein at the New Jersey Globe noticed a worrying trend for the GOP in new voter registration stats. New Jersey added more registered socialists (162) in September than it did registered Republicans (141). Democrats registered more than both (2,745). The state now has 6.7 million voters.