Gov. Chris Christie vetoed minutes of one board and demanded an explanation of another why it violated a prior veto.
Christie struck down minutes of a January 19 meeting of the Delaware River Port Authority (DRPA) because they authorized payment of $37,500 to American Continental Group Inc. for monitoring services performed in 2010, although the firm’s contract expired at the end of 2009.
Turning his attention north, Christie sent a letter to the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor demanding to know why it ignored his June 23 veto of their budget and gave “discretionary raises totaling $123,000 to non-contractual employees.”
In the veto last June, Christie instructed the commission to cut its proposed budget by $125,000. In a letter issued this week, Christie again ordered that all affected salaries be reduced to their original levels.
Since the New Jersey governor does not have the authority to veto minutes of the bi-state Waterfront Commission, Christie wasn’t able to require the actual raises be revoked. He can only veto the budget, or in this case a particular line in the budget for salaries. He made it known that the total amount to be reduced was to be based on the raises, which a source close to the matter said were contractually promised by the prior administration at the Waterfront Commission.
Phoebe Sorial, general counsel for the Waterfront Commission, said the new administration did what the governor asked, which was to reduce salaries by $125,000.
But they did so through attrition as other staff left naturally, not by taking back the raises. She could not comment on the personnel matter, but if the source is correct and the raises were contractual, then the Waterfront Commission would have been walking directly into litigation by taking back the pay increases.
“The commission reduced the regular, total payroll line item by the amount requested by the governor,” Sorial said.
“The commission would never disregard a directive from the governor,” she said, noting that the commission disclosed the raises to Christie’s staff three times before getting this letter eight months later. She said they’re being as transparent as they can be.
Regarding the DRPA, Christie stated, “In the absence of a valid, existing contract, procured through a competitive process, such a payment is simply improper and effectively amounts to a ‘no-bid’ contract. This payment violates the Authority’s own recently-enacted procurement policy reforms, enacted at my behest after the revelations of substantial waste, abuse and inappropriate expenditures at the Authority.”
Ed Kasuba, DRPA spokesman, said that it was his understanding that the veto was specifically for that one item of the American Continental pact.
“There’s nothing much we can say, we’ll abide by the governor’s wishes,” he said.
Additional reporting by Timothy. J. Carroll.