By Dustin Racioppi, Trenton Bureau, NorthJersey.com
Lawmakers “will be looking into” Gov. Phil Murphy’s hiring practices more thoroughly after NorthJersey.com and the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey published an “extremely troubling” account of an ethics official trying to alert the governor’s office to improper hiring at the Schools Development Authority, Senate President Stephen Sweeney said Friday.
Exactly how the Legislature will investigate is unclear. After the Network on Friday published a detailed account from Jane F. Kelly, a vice president in charge of ethics at the authority, Republican senators who served on the Select Oversight Committee called for a “renewed special legislative investigation” into the administration’s hiring practices.
“I agree with the two senators that we’re going to have to look into this,” Sweeney, D-Gloucester, said in an interview. “We will be looking into this.”
The decision comes less than two weeks after the oversight committee created last year to investigate hiring in the Murphy administration issued a report of its findings. But the committee focused almost exclusively on the hiring of one individual — Al Alvarez — and how he was hired as chief of staff at the schools authority.
Alvarez had been accused of sexually assaulting Katie Brennan, a former Murphy campaign volunteer who now works in the administration, during the 2017 campaign. He was not charged and denies the allegation.
Sweeney said there were similarities between Brennan’s case and Kelly’s. For months over 2017 and 2018, Brennan spoke with multiple Murphy aides about the alleged assault seeking action, but Alvarez was still given a top position in the administration.
As the oversight committee prepared to begin its hearings last November, Kelly called the governor’s office to warn of improper and potentially illegal hiring at the schools authority. The former chief executive officer of the authority, Lizette Delgado-Polanco, had hired about three dozen people, many of them connected to her and unqualified for their jobs, after laying off about two dozen longtime employees.
New Jersey Senate President Steve Sweeney listens as Gov. Phil Murphy delivers a speech on the state budget on Tuesday, March 5, 2019, in Trenton. (Photo: Danielle Parhizkaran/NorthJersey.com)
Kelly said she was trying to alert Murphy’s office so it could take action. She was told to file a complaint, which led to the administration hiring an outside law firm to investigate. That advice was given to Kelly in consultation with the Attorney General’s office, and the investigation is ongoing.
“I was clear to them: I’m trying to help you,” Kelly said. “The governor’s got a locomotive coming at him.”
That locomotive remained on the narrow track of Alvarez, though, while at least two other questionable hires gained little attention from the committee. Now that Kelly has come forward, Republican Sens. Kristin Corrado and Steven Oroho said in a letter that it’s time for a thorough review of hiring practices.
In the letter to Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, they said the committee should investigate the hiring processes and general operations at the authority and any other state agency, department or political subdivision.
