Towns, schools owe NJ $$$

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The state-run healthcare plans for local government workers and school employees are facing big premium increases this year.

At the same time, some towns and school districts owe the plans tens of millions of dollars in overdue payments, Nikita Biryukov reports today. The figure could be as high as $58 million. A town like Newark, which left the state-run plan three years ago to save costs, still owes the plan $11 million.

“The delinquent payments just put salt in the wound,” Assemblyman Mike Inganamort told Nikita.

Inganamort thinks the state should be more aggressive in seeking overdue payments, especially since the state-run plans are in distress after years of rising premiums and local units bailing to find cheaper plans on the private market.

Read more from Nikita.

Court: Daniel’s Law, the state statute that allows judges and cops to shield their addresses and phone numbers from the public, could be in jeopardy, with the New Jersey Supreme Court on Wednesday issuing a decision that says the law allows people who violate it to be fined even if they did not act knowingly or recklessly. The opinion is part of a broader federal case now before the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, which has said the law may unconstitutionally chill unrelated speech if it does not weigh violators’ intent or mental state.

Trenton: Elise Young at NJ Spotlight News reports that the state Attorney General’s Office is investigating real-estate transactions involving city-owned property in Trenton as the city attempts to sell off hundreds of blighted properties.

Investigations: What on EARTH

Health: A new federal rule blocks Medicaid coverage for transgender youth seeking certain hormone therapies and procedures. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. asserted that such care carries “serious risks and can cause irreversible harm.” Many of the nation’s leading medical associations, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, have called the new rule “a baseless intrusion into the patient-physician relationship.”

D.C.: The Trump administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to speed up its decision on a case hinging on President Trump’s executive order that restricts mail voting. Decisions in two cases at district and circuit courts have reached different conclusions about whether the rulemaking could continue in the lead-up to this fall’s elections, which are less than three months away.