New Jersey Statutes 48:2-16.4. Management audits
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Terms Used In New Jersey Statutes 48:2-16.4
- Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
- person: includes corporations, companies, associations, societies, firms, partnerships and joint stock companies as well as individuals, unless restricted by the context to an individual as distinguished from a corporate entity or specifically restricted to one or some of the above enumerated synonyms and, when used to designate the owner of property which may be the subject of an offense, includes this State, the United States, any other State of the United States as defined infra and any foreign country or government lawfully owning or possessing property within this State. See New Jersey Statutes 1:1-2
The Board of Public Utilities shall establish procedures to provide for management audits to be performed on a regular or irregular schedule on all or any portion of the operating procedures and any other internal workings of every gas or electric utility subject to its jurisdiction. In any case where the board determines that an audit is necessary or desirable, it may order the audit to be performed by members of its staff, or it may require that the audit be performed under the supervision of designated members of the board’s staff by an independent management consulting firm selected by the utility from a list provided by the board for the audit, which list shall include the names of at least five qualified firms, at least two of which shall be of nationally recognized stature. An audit shall be conducted at least once every 3 years, except where the board finds that an audit is unnecessary. In no event, however, shall an audit be conducted less than once every 6 years. All expenses of the audits shall be borne by the affected utilities. The results of each audit shall be filed with the board and shall be open to public inspection. Upon completion and review of an audit, if the person or firm performing or supervising the audit determines that any of the operating procedures or any other internal workings of the affected utility are inefficient, improvident, unreasonable, negligent or an abuse of discretion, the board may, after notice and opportunity for a hearing, order the affected public utility to adopt such new or altered practices and procedures as the board shall find to be necessary to promote efficient and adequate service to meet the public convenience and necessity. All reasonable and proper costs and expenses, as determined by the board, of complying with any order of the board pursuant to this act shall be recognized by the board for all purposes as proper business expenses of the affected utility. Nothing in this act shall be deemed to interfere or conflict with any powers of the board or its staff to conduct an audit, investigation or review of the books, records and accounts of any gas or electric utility under its jurisdiction.
L.1982, c. 222, s. 1, eff. Dec. 30, 1982.