No….The Township Does NOT have a CFO, and the Proposed Solution Should Raise Concerns

Jun 23, 20241 Comment

The Township Administrator has been acting as CFO for two months. This is what the State Comptroller has to say about that.

Councilman Paul Donnelly was the only Town Council Member to raise concerns about this issue, and there are concerns:

How can someone without the required certification be playing the role of CFO? CFO’s are required to sign off on required paperwork stating the Township has the funds prior to a contract is awarded

Checks and balances: For some contracts with the bidding process and others with no bid process, the Twp administration does the due diligence and background checks, so the recommendation for a contractor or professional services company comes from the same person who also certifies that the Township has the required funds.

Negotiating the appropriate pricing for services is another area that a certified and experienced CFO helps with, and having the same employee play dual roles causes concerns.

Instead of responding to Mr. Donnelly’s reasonable questions and the concerns inherent in this arrangement, members of his party remained silent while others focused on technicalities as to who can call a meeting:

When Mr. Donnelly raised concerns about the Township Administrator taking on the role of Qualified Purchasing Agent, he found himself in the middle of a monologue where his wife was thrown into the discussion with Town Council Member Susan Poage validating “all the facts” of what was a wholly inappropriate response to Mr. Donnelly’s concerns.

This week we find there is an agenda item indicating a Shared Services Agreement in connection to this position, with little to no public information on the reasoning. It would seem that this is an attempt to correct the issue.

However….

Given that the Township was dinged with Audit findings last year and the allegations put forward by the prior CFO – is a part-time CFO who has Berkeley Heights as a lower priority really the best choice for our township?

As Per Shared Services Agreement:

Audit Findings:

Given Senator Scutari’s assault on OPRA, is reducing the hours of the Township’s primary oversight position really in our best interest?

Wouldn’t it be better to stop paying a public relations firm and cc’ing attorneys on emails so that we can pay for a full-time CFO?

How will this position be able to produce budgets for two township’s during budget season given the demands of the process?

How does tenure (something intended to protect the CFO when holding the Township accountable) work in this arrangement? Will this arrangement lead to the independent oversight the Township is entitled to? As per the agreement, all it would take is 30 days notice to terminate her employment.

Will this employee be physically present in Berkeley Heights? Will they be supervising employees?

Also, the township and County have struggled with Shared Services agreements in the past, have lessons learned been addressed?

To be clear, as the spinning has already started, this is not an “attack” on the Township Administrator – it is a set of reasonable questions and concerns about the approach to this matter thus far and very much a criticism of a Mayor and Council in their handling of it.

Mr. Donnelly has been dragged through the mud in asking some of these fundamental questions and concerns and the Town should thank him for bringing it up.

Maybe it’s time that the elected representatives of our Township Government focus on the representative body they are actually responsible for and stop trying to spin reasonable questions and concerns as “attacks”.

Link to Shared Services Agreement

Link to Audit