[As emailed to City Council members, 4-29-2016]
Good Afternoon –
At your upcoming Council session of May 5, you will deliberate Resolution #16-170, authorizing an Emergency appropriation to pay the US Internal Revenue Service the funds embezzled in 2015 by individuals associated with Innovative Payroll Services. I understand the grave nature of this issue, and appreciate the urgency in resolving this matter. However, given how much about this entire episode has still not been disclosed to the public – and perhaps not even disclosed to Council – as of this week, I must express my opposition to this Resolution, and urge you to reject it at this time.
As stated on the Docket as issued today, April 29, by the office of the City Clerk, the agenda item fails to state the Dollar amount of the appropriation, which is unusual for agenda items generally, and specifically for this docket. All other Resolutions on your Agenda for next Thursday are itemized to the dollar, some to the penny. The lack of a similar Dollar number for Resolution #16-170 is notable and striking. Does the Administration intend to spring the number on the public only during the course of your Session?
That this matter is being handled on an Emergency basis is also notable and striking. That payments intended for the IRS which were not made in 2015 was known to the Administration at some point in Fall 2015. City Council was notified in January of this year. The Budget for the Fiscal Year ending June 30 was not approved until March 17. Surely, provision for these missing payments should have been made, deliberated and voted upon at that time, and not one month later.
As of this date, there are many unanswered questions about this matter that should be openly addressed before you authorize appropriation of funds to replace the money stolen by IPS. Namely:
- Has the internal audit and process review by the City’s outside Labor Counsel announced by Mayor Jackson on March 14 been completed? Has a report been written? Have you on Council seen that report?
- What are the findings of that review and audit? What recommendations have been proposed to ensure this situation cannot be repeated? Have those recommendations been implemented?
- Was this review and audit a truly unbiased and independent effort? What assurances do you have that this was the case?
- What changes have been made in City Hall – in policies, procedures and personnel – that will prevent reoccurrence of this? Who in the Administration is assuming accountability?
- We still do not know the chronology of how this episode unfolded: we don’t know what failures of procedures, communication and oversight led to this? How can we be confident we have made the right fixes if we don’t know how things failed?
- This Resolution covers payments due to the Internal Revenue Service. What is the current status of payments due to the State of New Jersey?
- What are the actual amounts due to be paid to the Federal Government and the State? How are these emergency appropriations being funded?
Unless these questions are fully addressed and answered in the intervening week, I believe there is no way that Council could conscientiously and ethically approve Resolution #16-170 next Thursday.
Frankly, the treatment of this matter as an Emergency Resolution authorizing an appropriation of an undisclosed amount of money, when so many questions remain unanswered, strikes me as an attempt to sweep the whole distasteful episode of the missing IPS money under the rug.
This is not the right way to be resolving this entire sordid affair. I urge you to vote down Resolution #16-170 unless there is more credible information forthcoming to you on or before Thursday than we have seen for all of the last four months.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Kevin Moriarty
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