Union County says comptroller’s report was flawed

Union County officials today slammed a state comptroller’s report alleging that several employees received added stipends and tuition reimbursements without county commissioners passing an ordinance to approve it.

“Union County categorically disputes (the Office of the State Comptroller’s) processes, findings, and conclusions,” said County Counsel Bruce Bergen.  “OSC proposes a confusing and expensive solution in search of a problem and attempts to rewrite a 50-year-old state law without involving the New Jersey legislature.  Last we checked, it is the legislature who makes law, not an unelected acting comptroller.”

The report found that three county officials received a combined $417,772 in additional compensation.

“Giving these top officials extra compensation without going through the required public process was unlawful, “ said acting State Comptroller Kevin Walsh.  “Residents should not have been deprived of the opportunity to weigh in.”

But Bergen accused the comptroller’s office of not meeting with them despite multiple requests to do so.

“We would have asked him why he chose to target only one of several counties for not anticipating OSC’s novel and impractical statutory analysis,” he stated.  “Union County simply followed the law transparently and as written following public notice and meetings, and could not have predicted that OSC would subsequently rewrite the statute to find fault with legally supportable practices that are followed among all OCCL counties.”

Bergen also says the OSC “denied Union County’s request to attach its comprehensive response as an addendum to the letter but instead handpicked portions of the county’s arguments to undergird their findings.”

The report centered mostly on the county’s finance director, who received $265,309 in stipends on top of a $175,985 salary, mostly for additional work at the Union County Improvement Authority.  On the lower end, the county manager received $16,500 in tuition reimbursements, a common practice for government employees.