Union County illegally paid hundreds of thousands to top officials, NJ comptroller says

ELIZABETH – Union County is disputing a finding by the Office of the State Comptroller (OSC) that its Manager Edward Oatman, along with two other top county officials, were paid $417,772 in extra stipends and tuition reimbursement without following the proper public process required by law.

Oatman received $16,500 in tuition reimbursement, while the county finance director received more than $300,000 in extra stipends, and the public works director nearly $100,000, according to the OSC report.

By law, compensation of top county officials must be fixed by ordinance, with a public notice, hearing and vote.

The OSC investigation found Oatman and the two other Union County department heads received compensation on top of their six-figure salaries that did not follow the public process, according to a letter OSC sent Tuesday to Sergio Granados, chairman of the Union County Board of Commissioners.

Deborah L. Gramiccioni, Union County's attorney in the matter, said the county categorically disputes OSC's processes, findings and conclusions.

"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 N.J. Legislature. Last we checked, it is the Legislature who makes law, not an unelected acting comptroller. Had the acting comptroller found the time to meet with us at our repeated requests, 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. 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 (Optional County Charter Law) counties," Gramiccioni said in a statement.

"Inexplicably, OSC denied Union County’s request to attach its comprehensive 30-page response as an addendum to the letter but instead handpicked portions of the county’s arguments to undergird their findings. To that end, we would direct interested parties to Union County’s formal letter response setting forth its concerns with OSC’s processes, findings and conclusions," Gramiccioni’s statement said.

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The OSC letter does not name the Union County officials. However, the Union County website lists Bibi Taylor as the director of finance and Joseph Policay as the acting director of public works.

Taylor's LinkedIn page indicates she has served as county finance director since March 2011. Policay's LinkedIn page indicates he has worked for the county since 1975 and has been director of public works since October 2006. However, Joseph Graziano's LinkedIn page also indicates he was director of the Union County Department of Engineering, Public Works and Facilities Management from 2006 to September 2023 and now serves as director of public works and engineering in Union Township.

Oatman was appointed county manager in 2018. State records from Dec. 2021 show he earns a salary of $185,976, while Taylor had a salary of $159,756, Policay, $128,508 andGraziano, $156,216.

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

OSC’s investigation indicates the finance director received the largest amount, $303,299 in stipends and partial tuition reimbursement, from October 2019 to August 2022. Records indicate Taylor received the stipends to provide financial management and project management services for the Union County Improvement Authority, a public entity that plans and manages development projects.

Under this arrangement, the finance director received $30,000 every six months from October 2019 until August 2020, at which point the county increased the stipend to $60,000 every six months.

The finance director also was a graduate school student and was paid $37,990 as partial reimbursement for three to four graduate classes taken every semester.

None of this extra compensation went through the required public process, according to the OSC.

During that same period, the finance director's salary also was raised four times, from $153,551 to $175,985. Those salary increases followed the public process, the OSC said.

OSC found that the county also paid the public works director $97,973 from January 2019 through August 2022, on top of his more than $150,000 base salary, to assist a municipality’s public works department. The supplemental payments should have been adopted by ordinance but were not, according to the OSC. The public works director's annual salary was $150,151 in 2019 and rose to $159,341 in 2022. The salary increases followed the public process.

OSC’s investigation also found that the county manager received tuition reimbursements totaling $16,500, which was not set by ordinance.

"State law applicable to Union County provides that the compensation of those with the most power, those who often are compensated the most and may have access to the greatest perks, is subject both to the greatest transparency and a check by the residents on whose behalf they serve," the letter to Board Chairman Granados states. "As discussed below, the county’s overly technical defense of its compensation practices for high-ranking officials fails to account for the checks and balances imposed to protect and engage taxpayers, and it creates unnecessary risks that public funds will be wasted when taxpayers’ rights are disregarded."

Since 1972, New Jersey’s Optional County Charter Law (OCCL) has required county boards of commissioners to establish compensation for themselves, the county executive, supervisor, manager or board president, administrative officer and department heads by passing an ordinance. Although Union County passed ordinances for the base salaries of the department heads and county manager, it did not do so for the stipends or tuition reimbursements, the OSC said.

Union County claimed that the law did not require supplemental payments to high-level officials to be approved through an ordinance.

Going forward, Union County, and other counties subject to OCCL, should strictly adhere to the public process required by the law when setting all forms of compensation for top officials, OSC’s letter said.

OSC also directed Union County to create a corrective action plan, detailing how it will comply with the law for the $417,772 in stipends and tuition reimbursements already disbursed.

Email: srussell@gannettnj.com

Suzanne Russell is a breaking news reporter for MyCentralJersey.com covering crime, courts and other mayhem. To get unlimited access, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Union County illegally paid top officials, NJ comptroller report says