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Bramnick and Bucco: Want to know if government picks up the phone when people call for help

NEW JERSEY – Senator Jon Bramnick and Senator Anthony M. Bucco want to know if New Jerseyans can get anyone to pick up the phone when they call government agencies for help.

“It’s time that we have a Consumer Czar to call government entities at the State, county, and local levels to determine whether they respond,” said Bramnick (R-21). “The job of the czar is to let the Legislature know if you can get anyone to pick up the phone when you call for help.”

Their new bill, S-2430, establishes the independent State Office of the Consumer in the Legislative Branch of State Government.

The Office of the Consumer will be responsible for conducting routine, periodic, and random phone call assessments of local government, school district, and State offices and the offices of regulated health insurance companies by calling those offices to determine the responsiveness and accessibility of the office.

The office will also be responsible for periodic assessments of the websites of local government, school district, and State offices and the offices of regulated health insurance companies and by assessing the user-friendliness of the websites.

The director will make monthly reports to the Legislature and the Governor that include the frequency and ease of reaching a live person to speak to when calling offices and the ease of finding information and user-friendliness of the websites visited during the reporting period.

Bucco said this reporting would provide trustworthy, quantitative data for lawmakers that could help drive and measure the success of reforms to improve government services.

“We witnessed the long lines at the MVC and heard the horror stories about unemployment during the pandemic,” said Bucco (R-25). “That was first-hand proof that things were really bad.  Unfortunately, when you listen to those agency heads, they never really seem to understand how bad it really is. As legislators, we want trustworthy data that accurately quantifies the extent of the problem and measures the success of various reforms. This legislation will finally provide that source.”

Jay Edwards

Born and raised in Northwest NJ, Jay has a degree in Communications and has had a life-long interest in local radio and various styles of music. Jay has held numerous jobs over the years such as stunt car driver, bartender, voice-over artist, traffic reporter (award winning), NY Yankee maintenance crewmember and peanut farm worker. His hobbies include mountain climbing, snowmobiling, cooking, performing stand-up comedy and he is an avid squirrel watcher. Jay has been a guest on America’s Morning Headquarters,program on The Weather Channel, and was interviewed by Sam Champion.

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