A state commission recommends a new inspector general’s office to focus on non-criminal fraud and ethics abuses. (Photo by Hal Brown for New Jersey Monitor)
New Jersey should create an inspector general under the attorney general’s oversight, pass additional safeguards against conflicts of interest, and make it easier for residents to refer complaints to New Jersey’s top law enforcement official, a state commission said in a new report released Wednesday.
The Transparency and Reliability Uniting to Secure Trust Commission’s report and its recommendations are meant to boost public confidence in government while tackling corruption in the Garden State.
“The recommendations contained in this report are not a panacea, but they offer pathways for progress as the Department of Law and Public Safety continues its efforts to root out corruption and ensure that our government responds to the needs of New Jersey’s residents,” Attorney General Matt Platkin said in a letter attached to the report.
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Platkin is in his final days as New Jersey’s attorney general. Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill takes office on Jan. 20, and she has tapped former prosecutor Jen Davenport as Platkin’s successor.
The report calls for an inspector general within the law and public safety division — which Platkin’s office oversees — who would probe non-criminal fraud and abuses by government employees in an attempt at deterrence.
Unlike a recently stalled legislative proposal to shift some powers of the state comptroller to the State Commission of Investigation, which is partly overseen by legislative officials, the inspector general called for by the commission would leave other watchdogs intact.
The inspector general’s mission would have limited overlap with existing oversight offices, the report says. While the comptroller focuses on misuse of public funds, the inspector general would primarily target civil fraud and ethics or legal violations by state officials or contractors.
The Legislature should create the office of inspector general and grant it subpoena power, but the inspector general should use their discretion when deciding whether to release their findings to the public, the report says.
“The work of the proposed Office of the Inspector General would expand the ability of the Department to ensure that the government is worthy of the public it serves, holding it to the highest standards and rooting out wrongdoing even when it does not rise to the level of criminality,” it says.
A spokesperson for Senate President Nicholas Scutari (D-Union), who sponsored the legislation to shift some oversight powers away from the comptroller, did not return a request for comment. Scutari had said that measure was intended in part to create a state inspector general position to field complaints about law enforcement.
CJ Griffin, an attorney and transparency advocate, said New Jersey could always use more oversight but stopped short of endorsing the report’s proposal.
“In general, I think there should always be more watchdogs than we have,” she said. “Whether that means we need new, entirely different watchdogs or just expanding the staffing at our current watchdogs, I don’t know.”
Griffin has represented the New Jersey Monitor in multiple legal matters.
The report also calls for a compliance unit within the Attorney General’s Office that would ensure individuals or establishments licensed by the state — like police officers, health care workers, and liquor stores, among others — comply with state laws and regulations. The unit should report its findings to the public through an online portal that includes information about the requirements imposed on entities regulated by the state.
“Making the results of the Compliance Unit’s work readily accessible to the public will significantly improve transparency, showing the public that the government is holding itself to account on an ongoing basis, and improving the public’s trust in the government as a whole,” the report says.
The state should also boost funding for the public integrity and accountability office, an anti-corruption office that has been assailed by critics after some very public stumbles, and consider rolling that office back into the criminal justice division, the report says. Those offices were one until then-Attorney General Gurbir Grewal in 2018 split public corruption investigations into their own unit.
“OPIA frequently charges complex cases involving large amounts of data and documents, where defendants are often represented by well‐resourced defense counsel at high‐powered law firms. It is in the public’s interest for the only statewide criminal public corruption prosecutors to be well‐resourced and supported so that they can handle cases efficiently,” the report says.
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