Officials: Local pay-to-play reform must be enacted
Group warns of influence by businesses in N.J.
Discussions of government waste in Trenton since Gov. Chris Christie took office have often centered on public worker compensation and benefits. But the real jackpot in New Jersey arguably is found in contracts with private business entities.
Despite news conferences and statements from governors and lawmakers over the years, little has been done to regulate the flow of cash from businesses that also hold local government contracts, according to New Jersey’s top watchdog.
“Such a system may have comported in some sense with New Jersey’s notion of home-rule in that it vested local officials with nearly unlimited discretion in contracting,” wrote Comptroller Matthew Boxer in a report released Sept. 15. “In so doing, however, it permitted those officials to make contract-award decisions, without oversight, that were contrary to the interests of the general public.”
According to Boxer, well more than $100 million in taxpayer dollars annually is given out in “unregulated” local government contracts. The exact dollar amount is difficult to pin down, Boxer noted, because such contracts are not uniformly monitored.
Harry Pozycki, founder of Metuchen-based nonprofit watchdog The Citizens Campaign, agreed the current state of local pay-to-play reform — in which counties and municipalities basically write their own rules — was not acceptable.
