Politics & Government

Councilman Haas: 'We Wasted the Taxpayers' Money'

The lone Democrat questioned why the town of Westfield missed the boat on the law change regarding pension benefits for part-time municipal officials.

Update: After Tuesday evening's meeting of the finance committee, Westfield Councilman David Haas added that the last attorney that Westfield had in the pension system was dropped this month because of the publicity.

"We did the appropriate analysis - one can debate the correctness of that analysis - but it was done as required," Haas noted. "We sent our analysis to the Division of Pension Benefits recently for them to review in their investigation of the people from Westfield that might be affected. So we have responded appropriately to the report - even before my comments reached the public."

Original 5 a.m.: Westfield Councilman David Haas, the lone Democrat on the dais, addressed the recent report issued by the Office of the State Comptroller that included the Town of Westfield among 57 municipalities that failed to remove private and independent contractors from the pension system.

Find out what's happening in Westfieldwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

More than 200 independent contractors in the state have been illegally clocking hours toward their pension and benefits since 2008, according to a report released July 17.

Patch asked Haas his position on the OSC's investigation and if a third party had been retained by the Town of Westfield to determine which part-time municipal officials legally could continue to receive pension benefits before the law went into effect.

Find out what's happening in Westfieldwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The following is Haas' response: 

"First: This was a wrong practice before it was illegal. We helped attorneys game the system and create large unfunded pension obligations that will cost the taxpayers millions of dollars. We were not required to do this. If we had simply hired these attorneys as contractors or on retainer rather than making them town employees they would have been ineligible for the pension system. Former councilman Bigosinski and I pointed this out repeatedly. The town's own legal survey showed there were several towns in Union County which did not have their attorneys in the system. The town's labor attorney was never in the pension system, but was and is a contractor. The town clearly understood that keeping them in the pension system was not required by the state. By providing these political appointees with an unearned and unneeded benefit we wasted the taxpayers money, put payment for our current legal obligations off for future taxpayers and helped to bankrupt the pension system for all of the legitimate career full-time employees, many of whom earned only $30,000 to $40,000 a year.

"Second: We need to ask why the town of Westfield missed the boat on the law change. According to the comptrollers report about 60% of the communities in NJ got this right and had no part-time attorneys in the pension system after 2007.  This question needs to be asked so that we don't make a similar mistake again.  Did the town perform the analysis the law required? I served on the finance committee and cannot recall ever seeing such an analysis. I intend to ask to see whatever documentation the town has on the clearly required case-by-case analysis.

"The comptroller has said that he will refer cases to the Division of Pension Benefits to have them investigated and undeserved benefits taken back. He makes a point of how understaffed the DPB is. The least that the town of Westfield should do would be to immediately remove any remaining attorneys from the system. Then we should make certain that the proper analysis is done on every attorney that Westfield has had in the system from 2008 on. Any analysis showing that any of the attorneys we had in the pension system should not have been in the system should be forwarded to the DPB to help them in their investigations of these cases.

"One irony of this whole issue is that the majority on council repeatedly used the good legal advice we were getting as part of the justification for these perks.  Unfortunately on the interpretation of their own eligibility in the pension system the legal advice seems to have been less than sterling. We were in the 40% minority of municipalities which got the wrong legal answer on this issue. 

"In summary, we were wrong before the law changed, wrong and illegal after the law changed, and now it's time to examine our actions and to help the state reclaim any pension benefits that were improperly given to some of our employees."

When contacted for comment former Councilman Thomas Bigosinski said he voted against the budget in 2009 "and in prior years because of the part-time attorneys being in the pension system" but added that his "recollection of the specifics of that situation are fairly sketchy" as it has been more than two years since he served on the council. 

To read the Office of the State Comptroller's reports in their entirety, click here and here.


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