I bet this scratches the tip of the iceberg, I wonder how much quiet money had to be paid out too?
the garden state, the garbage state, the cannibal state, the tax-and-spend state, the gun-control state, the abortion state, the pretty-boy state, the gay-boy state.
Well... I guess that "Governor's Personal Boy-Toy" doesn't sound very good on a business card.
NJ, corrupt as ever
NJ, corrupt as ever
| Thursday, October 14, 2004 |
JIM MCGREEVEY has been presiding over a governmental Kiddie Corps. He has placed young, inexperienced assistants in important, high-salaried jobs. Some have worked hard and done pretty well. One who didn't was Golan Cipel.
When the governor announced in August that he was gay and would resign, he said he wanted to squelch threats and extortion attempts. Aides said such threats were made by Cipel. They said he was McGreevey's partner in a homosexual, extramarital affair gone sour.
The governor had put him on the state payroll as homeland security adviser, at a salary of $110,000. Attention focused on the sexual aspect of the relationship, but it turns out that the managerial part was also problematic.
Cipel was clearly unqualified for the job, but his appointment was assumed in retrospect to be an aberration. That is not quite the case, as was made clear Sunday in a Record story by reporters John Dyer, Clint Riley, and Jeff Pillets.
The reporters established a pattern in which McGreevey installed young aides, often drivers and stump assistants, in posts with significant responsibilities, although they lacked prescribed qualifications. No one has suggested that aside from Cipel any of them shared McGreevey's sexual orientation.
The reporters identified 11 staffers - two of them women - whose average age was 28 when McGreevey took office three years ago. They have received raises averaging $19,000 since then. Despite budget constraints, their current average salary is $77,000.
By comparison, the typical state employee is 44 years old, is paid $58,800, and has put in 12 years on the job. The governor's chief of staff, Jamie Fox, argues that just because someone is young does not mean he is incapable of serious work. He defends Jason Kirin, for example, as a fellow who is very bright and capable.
Kirin, now 27, started three years ago as the governor's personal assistant, paid $65,000. The two traveled the state together. Fox says that in that situation, a government novice learns fast. "Through osmosis alone, you pick up skills," he says. Some people learn through the School of Hard Knocks. Our Jim was headmaster of a School of Osmosis.
Kirin went from gubernatorial aide to a job in the Department of Transportation and then, shades of Golan Cipel, to the New Jersey Office of Counter-Terrorism, where he served as chief of staff despite having no experience in counter-terrorism. He recently moved again, becoming chief of staff for the scandal-tainted Commerce and Economic Growth Commission, now under new management.
State personnel guidelines say a chief of staff serving a Cabinet-level officer should have a bachelor's degree and six years of managerial experience in public administration, or five years of experience and a graduate degree in business or public administration. Kirin has a bachelor's degree in sociology. He is studying at Rutgers for a master's in public administration.
Perhaps he is a wunderkind. There ought to be room in any organization for a gifted person who lacks some formal credentials. But could there be 11 prodigies in one administration? Here is Kevin McCabe, now 32 and commissioner of labor. He has worked for McGreevey for years, starting in Woodbridge, where he served as driver for McGreevey when he was mayor, eventually becoming Town Hall chief of staff. When the boss moved on to the State House, he took McCabe with him, as deputy labor commissioner. That job paid $115,000.
The commissioner of labor then was Albert Kroll, 53, a nationally recognized labor lawyer. He quit last spring. McGreevey nominated McCabe as his replacement. McCabe was confirmed by the Senate in June. He is running a department with 3,800 employees and a state budget of $94 million, plus $370 million in federal funds. His salary is $141,000. Like Kirin, he is working toward a master's degree at Rutgers.
McGreevey is pressing his prospective successor, Richard Codey, to retain McCabe. Codey is resisting. McGreevey was so taken with another young aide, who served as his weekend assistant, that he gave him a room of his own in Drumthwacket, the executive mansion. Aside from the question of qualifications, given the context of McGreevey's resignation, the managerial problem here, as in other cases, is that recognition and eventual advancement in the administration has often depended on simple proximity to the governor. Not a good thing.Friends in high places
| Wednesday, October 13, 2004 |
A LACK of experience didn't keep some young people from doing very well in Governor McGreevey's administration.
In fact, some of the governor's young aides were encouraged to make up job titles, according to The Record's investigation published on Sunday. That's how one 27-year-old came to be "executive director of the office of the governor of New Jersey." The title was fake, but the salary was real: $78,000 a year.
Staff Writers John Dyer, Clint Riley and Jeff Pillets found that the governor "hired and promoted youthful associates with little regard to qualification, experience, education or the impact on the dwindling state coffers." Some of these people went straight from campaign work to high management positions in the McGreevey administration. Few had any substantive knowledge of state government.
Labor Commissioner Kevin McCabe, for example, had been Mr. McGreevey's chief of staff when he was mayor of Woodbridge. He became deputy labor commissioner two years ago, and then commissioner. Now 32, he earns $141,000, oversees a department with a $462 million budget and 3,800 employees - and is attending Rutgers part time to earn an MBA.
The governor's office says there is nothing wrong with hiring bright young people, something previous administrations have done. But there are limits, such as entrusting the governor's own office to inexperienced staffers. One woman, who had been implicated in a political scandal while working in Wisconsin, became a $55,000-a-year aide to Mr. McGreevey just before she turned 23. Eventually, she was making $60,000 as the governor's director of scheduling.
Another aide is on leave from his post as a deputy chief of staff in the governor's office, a job that pays $108,000 a year. He lists a college degree as part of his background, but apparently still needs some credits to graduate.
Mr. McGreevey, who is making farewell appearances these days as he prepares to resign next month, made a few appointment whoppers as governor, including the now infamous appointment of the highly unqualified Golan Cipel as his homeland security adviser. The rest is history.
The appointments discussed here are not about personal relationships with the governor. They are about cronyism, about not using good judgment. Cronyism usually negates the opportunity to surround oneself with the best qualified staff possible.
Jokes were made about Mr. McGreevey's appointment of so many young staffers, and some legislators complained about dealing with aides with so little experience on policy issues.
Surely, more experienced and qualified people could have been persuaded to accept the six-figure salaries some of the young aides were making.
It's an understatement now, but Mr. McGreevey should have known better.
And that experience could translate into drugs, possibly?
I just know they will.
Well???
Where's the PICTURES????