Fort Monmouth panel seeking another accountant
Other candidate résumés to be reconsidered
BY SUE MORGAN
Staff Writer

Eatontown

EATONTOWN - The runner-ups for a state-funded accounting position at the authority overseeing Fort Monmouth's future could get another shot at landing the job.

Though his initial pick for the $85,000 yearly accountant's post with the Fort Monmouth Economic Revitalization Planning Authority (FMERPA) resigned the day after he was hired, Executive Director Frank Cosentino said he believes he will find another suitable candidate.

"We're moving on," Cosentino said in a Nov. 22 interview.

As the authority employee charged with recommending candidates for hire to FMERPA's nine voting members, Cosentino said he is now reviewing the other résumés that were previously submitted for the job overseeing the public-private entity's financial operations.

The full-time position, to be located at the authority's new headquarters on Christopher Way in Eatontown, comes with a state benefits packages in addition to the salary.

If Cosentino cannot find anyone qualified for the post whose background checks out and who meets the authority's other requirements, including its pay-to-play regulations, he will again turn to advertising the job widespread as he did before.

"I need someone with the capabilities and insights into the state's financial operations," Cosentino said. "It's not an easy task to find someone like that."

John Tully, the state Department of the Treasury employee hired via a unanimous authority vote on Nov. 16, possessed those capabilities and more, Cosentino noted.

However, Tully, a Spring Lake Heights councilman, stepped down the following day after learning that he was disqualified for the job that would have begun today because he had contributed more than $300 to the New Jersey Democratic State Committee Jan. 1, 2004.

A "pay-to-play" clause in the state-approved legislation that created the authority limits the contributions made by FMERPA members or employees to candidates for office or their political parties.

Once Tully realized that his contribution made him ineligible for the job he had planned to take after leaving the state treasury department, he tendered his resignation to Cosentino.

"I was disappointed," Cosentino said. "I knew what an asset we were losing."

Cosentino is giving Tully the benefit of the doubt regarding his knowledge of the pay-to-play clause before he applied for and accepted the position.

"It's a very unique statute," Cosentino said of the lengthy, detailed piece of legislation which was signed into law by Gov. Jon S. Corzine in April.

In choosing Tully and two other new hires, Deputy Director Richard Harrison and Executive Assistant Kathryn Verrochi, Cosentino said he reviewed the candidates' backgrounds and credentials thoroughly before recommending them to the authority members.

"It was a very careful process," Cosentino said.

However, now that all involved in the hiring process are aware of the clause's existence, the authority can proceed with the search for new candidates, he said.

Going forward, the authority's personnel committee, headed by Eatontown Mayor Gerald J. Tarantolo, will be included in reviewing résumés and credentials, Cosentino said.

"We will ask the personnel committee for input," he said. "They will have the option of interviewing the candidates."

In a Nov. 20 interview, Tarantolo stated that FMERPA's three-member personnel committee was not asked to review résumés or credentials for Tully, Harrison or Verrochi prior to their hiring four days earlier.

Just before the roll call that authorized Cosentino to hire Tully, both Tarantolo and Tinton Falls Mayor Peter Maclearie, another FMERPA member, questioned the accountant's qualifications and employment record with the state treasury.

Noting his committee's lack of input in the hiring process, Tarantolo asked Cosentino if Tully would continue working with the state treasury if he accepted the FMERPA accounting post.

Cosentino then stated that Tully would leave his supervisory position at the state treasury and work solely for the authority.

Recalling news reports of several recent indictments of treasury department employees, Maclearie asked Cosentino whether or not Tully had been involved in any wrongdoing while a state employee.

Cosentino, who said background checks had been conducted on Tully, Harrison and Verrochi before they were selected for the jobs, told Maclearie that the accountant had no involvement in the reported wrongdoing at the state treasury.

Before the appointments of Harrison, Verrochi or the new accountant can be finalized, Corzine must review and approve the minutes of the Nov. 16 meeting where their hiring was voted upon, Cosentino explained.

The accountant, deputy director and executive assistant will report to Cosentino, who in turn reports to the authority.

The FMERPA panel has been set up by the state to lead redevelopment of the 1,126-acre Fort Monmouth property and to find new jobs for base employees after the U.S. Army installation shuts down.

Fort Monmouth is scheduled for shuttering under the federal Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process in September 2011.