TRENTON — Saying it would eliminate a crucial check and balance to the executive branch, a top Democratic lawmaker today tore into Gov. Chris Christie’s proposal to merge the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation with the comptroller’s office. “That’s chutzpah,” said Senate Majority Leader Barbara Buono (D-Middlesex) at a Senate Legislative Oversight Committee meeting today. “To me it...
NJ Senator Barbara Buono questions NJ State Comptroller Matthew Boxer as he testifies before the N.J. Senate Legislative Oversight Committee this morning.
TRENTON — Saying it would eliminate a crucial check and balance to the executive branch, a top Democratic lawmaker today tore into Gov. Chris Christie’s proposal to merge the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation with the comptroller’s office.
“That’s chutzpah,” said Senate Majority Leader Barbara Buono (D-Middlesex) at a Senate Legislative Oversight Committee meeting today. “To me it would seriously undermine the separation of powers to have subpoena power that was in an independent watchdog eliminated, abolished, and sited in the executive branch.”
Under Christie’s proposed budget, $3.5 million would be slashed from the commission– more than three quarters of its budget -- and its remnants would be merged with the Office of the State Comptroller, along with the state Office of the Inspector General and the Medicaid Inspector General. Another watchdog agency, the Department of the Public Advocate, would be eliminated entirely.
Democratic lawmakers have taken issue with the merging of the State Commission of Investigation because it is part of the legislative branch, while the Office of the Comptroller is a quasi-independent agency within the executive branch.
The commission was created in 1968 to address the influence of organized crime in state government. Since then, it has conducted investigations of not only organized crime, but government and private sector waste, fraud and abuse.
The commission’s chairman, former state Attorney General W. Cary Edwards, said the commission has more than paid for its small budget by identifying tens of millions of dollars for the government to recoup in its investigations.
“We’re in the business of saving taxpayer dollars. In other words, we pay our own way, and that’s something you don’t hear very often in government,” he said. “This is real money we’re talking about here -- documented opportunities for saving taxpayer dollars.”
State Comptroller Matthew Boxer said if the other watchdog agencies are consolidated with his office, it will add two new divisions and take on subpoena power for investigations that it does not currently have. He acknowledged that laying off 43 out of the State Commission of Investigation’s 53 employees is a possibility.
Boxer said the state’s watchdog agency structure is a “bit balkanized” and that some agencies have overlapping jurisdiction.
“What is more typical in other states is a more centralized, robust oversight function in one office” he said.
