New Jersey has hundreds of boards, authorities, and commissions. State lawmakers are taking action to get rid of some of them.

A Senate committee has advanced legislation that would eliminate about 50 inactive boards and commissions that are no longer needed or have been replaced by other government agencies.

Senator Jim Whelan says scrapping them probably won’t save the state much money.

 “You’re not printing stuff or publishing a list of things that really as a practical matter don’t exist. So it’s not something that we can point to that we’re going to balance the budget on. I wish it were, but it’s not.”

Two years ago, lawmakers abolished 20 other dormant authorities and commissions.

Whelan says he’s not sure how many more of them there might be.

“I really don’t know which is part of the problem with this. Hopefully this will go a long way to cleaning it up, and it’s probably something that will need to be done maybe not next year but certainly down the road five, ten years from now when some of these things outlive their useful life. New issues come up. New boards are needed. Old boards should be abolished.”