Trentonian State Watch: New Jersey's other state payroll
Published: Sunday, July 24, 2011
By DAVE NEESE
Staff Writer
It’s an almost-off-the-books state government
workforce, outside the reach of union contracts
and civil service rules.
Its numbers are uncounted. But tax dollars for it
are squirreled away in the state budget — more t
han $413 million this fiscal year.
The appropriated sum remained mostly intact, surviving
Gov. Christie’s slashing veto of nearly $1 billion of
Democratic legislators’ spending add-ons last month.
The $413-million-plus is earmarked mostly for outside
contractors and consultants. But don’t bother looking for
these set-aside tax dollars in the state budget under that
heading.
You’ll find the dollars instead listed under the cryptic
category “Salaries Other Than Personal.”
According to an official translation of mystifying budgetary
terms — yes, there once was such a thing, published along
with the state budget — “Salaries Other Than Personal”
includes “services that are primarily non-personal or of a
contract nature under which no employer-employe
relationship is established.”
But Treasury Dept. spokesman William Quinn adds that the
category also includes tax dollars for subscriptions,
memberships, travel, postage and other expenses.
State employe unions have long regarded spending on
consultants and outside contractors with suspicion, viewing
it as it as a Trojan horse for patronage and a drain on
regular state government jobs.
Assignments given to consultants can be done by state
employes at a lower cost, insists Rae Roeder, president
of Communications Workers of America Local 1033, which represents 6,200 state employes in various agencies.
And consultant deals, she adds, are notoriously “a way to reward friends and supporters.”
“Someone needs to take a close look at this spending,” says Roeder.
State administrators say that outside jobs funded out of the Salaries Other Than Personal accounts often involve
technical or professional services that the civil service ranks can’t handle, typically in high-tech areas like data
processing or telecommunications.
State law allows for competitive bidding to be waived for technical and professional services or if the assignment
is classified as a “public exigency.”
In line with his pledge to rein in state spending, outlays under the Salaries Other Than Personal category are
trending downward under Christie.
The numbers have eased downward from $521 million in FY 2007-08 to $503 million in FY 2008-09 to $497
million in FY 2009-10.
Still, the $413.6 million earmarked this year — although not a major expenditure category in a state budget that’s
set consume more than $40 billion in state and federal funds — is hardly chump change.
The downward-trending sum is, for example, nearly double the amount that state expects to collect from cigarette
taxes.
It’s roughly equal to the total amount the state plans to spend on child behavior health services.
And it is some 55 times greater than the $7.5 million for family planning services that Gov. Christie deleted with
his veto pen.
Whatever the direction of the spending trend under Salaries Other Than Personal, says CWA’s Roeder, “They’re
spending far too much money on consultants.”
Published: Sunday, July 24, 2011
By DAVE NEESE
Staff Writer
It’s an almost-off-the-books state government
workforce, outside the reach of union contracts
and civil service rules.
Its numbers are uncounted. But tax dollars for it
are squirreled away in the state budget — more t
han $413 million this fiscal year.
The appropriated sum remained mostly intact, surviving
Gov. Christie’s slashing veto of nearly $1 billion of
Democratic legislators’ spending add-ons last month.
The $413-million-plus is earmarked mostly for outside
contractors and consultants. But don’t bother looking for
these set-aside tax dollars in the state budget under that
heading.
You’ll find the dollars instead listed under the cryptic
category “Salaries Other Than Personal.”
According to an official translation of mystifying budgetary
terms — yes, there once was such a thing, published along
with the state budget — “Salaries Other Than Personal”
includes “services that are primarily non-personal or of a
contract nature under which no employer-employe
relationship is established.”
But Treasury Dept. spokesman William Quinn adds that the
category also includes tax dollars for subscriptions,
memberships, travel, postage and other expenses.
State employe unions have long regarded spending on
consultants and outside contractors with suspicion, viewing
it as it as a Trojan horse for patronage and a drain on
regular state government jobs.
Assignments given to consultants can be done by state
employes at a lower cost, insists Rae Roeder, president
of Communications Workers of America Local 1033, which represents 6,200 state employes in various agencies.
And consultant deals, she adds, are notoriously “a way to reward friends and supporters.”
“Someone needs to take a close look at this spending,” says Roeder.
State administrators say that outside jobs funded out of the Salaries Other Than Personal accounts often involve
technical or professional services that the civil service ranks can’t handle, typically in high-tech areas like data
processing or telecommunications.
State law allows for competitive bidding to be waived for technical and professional services or if the assignment
is classified as a “public exigency.”
In line with his pledge to rein in state spending, outlays under the Salaries Other Than Personal category are
trending downward under Christie.
The numbers have eased downward from $521 million in FY 2007-08 to $503 million in FY 2008-09 to $497
million in FY 2009-10.
Still, the $413.6 million earmarked this year — although not a major expenditure category in a state budget that’s
set consume more than $40 billion in state and federal funds — is hardly chump change.
The downward-trending sum is, for example, nearly double the amount that state expects to collect from cigarette
taxes.
It’s roughly equal to the total amount the state plans to spend on child behavior health services.
And it is some 55 times greater than the $7.5 million for family planning services that Gov. Christie deleted with
his veto pen.
Whatever the direction of the spending trend under Salaries Other Than Personal, says CWA’s Roeder, “They’re
spending far too much money on consultants.”
