State lawmakers were poised May 18 to greenlight what critics are calling an expensive, redundant mandate forcing beach-badge collecting municipalities to reopen their master plans to disclose current beach-related expenses and revenues while forecasting for the future.

“To open the master plan, you have to have an engineer; you have to have an attorney,” Surf City Councilman Peter Hartney said last week. “The cost of the compliance in this bill is unfathomable.”