Interim borough Manager Darren McConnell disputed the state’s claim that the borough is not cooperating. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank is one of nine New Jersey municipalities that have failed to take action to prevent illegal sick leave and vacation payouts to departing employees, a state agency said Thursday.
In a press release, acting New Jersey Comptroller Kevin Walsh said the borough and eight other towns “are failing in their most basic responsibilities: To act as a fiduciary of taxpayer funds and to be transparent about how these funds are used.” They risk losing state funding if they don’t comply, he said.
But interim borough Manager Darren McConnell pushed back against some of Walsh’s assertions.
Under state law, government employees hired after May, 2010, employees may not collect more than $15,000 for unused sick leave, the OSC said in a news release. “Employees can only receive that $15,000 at retirement – not when they resign, change jobs, or as an annual payout. Employees also can’t carry over more than a year’s worth of vacation time,” it said.
In a letter addressed to Governor Phil Murphy and the legislature, Walsh said nine towns, including Red Bank, “have refused to cooperate in the development of a corrective action plan” since a July, 2022, OSC report finding that, of 60 towns surveyed, 57 failed to follow the laws capping payouts of sick leave and accrued vacation time to government employees – “creating a financial liability of many millions of dollars for taxpayers.”
The other towns cited were Bridgewater, Hamilton, Pennsville, Piscataway, Rutherford, Sparta, Wantage and West New York.
“After more than a year, they continue to delay,” Walsh said in the news release. “My office will use all of the tools we have to protect New Jersey taxpayers from fraud, waste, and abuse.”
The aim of the letter to Murphy was to put the towns on notice that the OSC may request that state funds be withheld from the municipalities, and that the future payouts be subjected to prior approval by the OSC, Walsh wrote.
McConnell, however, disputed the claim that Red Bank has failed to cooperate.
“The Borough has had communications with the OSC regarding this matter and did file a CAP [corrective action plan] as required,” he told redbankgreen via email Friday. “Due to a procedural oversight the CAP was not approved by a vote of the governing body at the time, but we fully intend to do that as soon as possible.
“Likewise, while we did an internal review, we did not have our independent auditor do so as it was ‘recommended’ at the time, not required,” he continued. “We have now asked our auditor to complete the review. I expect this all to be done by the end of October.”
redbankgreen asked if any payouts to former employees had exceeded the limits set by the 2010 law.
“To my knowledge no payments have been made that would be contrary to the statute but the auditor will confirm that as we are looking back a number of years,” McConnell said.
McConnell, who also serves as police chief, announced plans to retire from that post in June. But his retirement has been indefinitely postponed by a state Attorney General’s office investigation into complaints about him by the local police union. McConnell told redbankgreen Thursday that he had not heard from the AG about the matter.
Meantime, the council is conducting a search for a new borough manager, and was slated to meet behind closed doors Friday morning to interview one or more candidates for the new position, according to an announcement earlier this week. No formal action was to be taken at the session, it said.
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