BY JOYCE BLAY
Staff Writer
There are better ways to spend taxpayer money. That was the opinion of Jackson PBA President Christopher Parise after finding out that the firm hired to assess police staffing needs is headed by Steven Glickman, the labor attorney who represented the township during arbitration with the police union last year.
“This was proposed to me by Mr. Salerno as an unbiased, apolitical assessment of the department’s personnel structure and staffing levels,” Parise said, referring to Business Administrator Andrew Salerno. “By the township hiring a firm headed by one of its labor attorneys, I don’t know how this goal can be accomplished.”
Proactive Management Systems Inc. submitted an estimate of $4,000 to perform the analysis. The committee voted to approve a resolution awarding the contract to the firm at its Feb. 14 meeting. Jackson Mayor Michael Broderick, Deputy Mayor Michael Kafton and Committeeman Sean Giblin voted in favor of the resolution. Committeeman Mark Seda voted against it. Committeeman Josh Reilly was not present.
Seda questioned the need for an independent assessment of the police department’s staffing needs.
“We’re spending $4,000 to take the onus off this committee,” he said. “I want to stop the posturing.”
Salerno, who has been meeting with the PBA to discuss the union’s staffing concerns, insisted that an outside firm be hired to perform the analysis rather than have it done in-house.
“What I want, what the committee wants and what the public deserves is an unbiased judgment,” he said. “I have performed the studies myself, but as an administrator, I have a vested interest. It’s in the best interests of the township” to hire an outside firm.
Salerno said Proactive Management Systems is a very specialized firm. He said only three firms in New Jersey perform the type of analysis that was required, and only two of those firms submitted bids.
Glickman told the Tri-Town News on Monday that the higher estimate was $11,000 more than his. He said that since the committee meeting two weeks earlier, the township had received an estimate from the third firm of $9,000.
“My estimate was so much lower be-cause I’m doing this as an accommodation,” he said. “If another client called me up for a similar service and was not already an existing client, they would have been charged a higher rate. This is really being done as an accommodation for the township.”
Glickman said any concerns voiced by the PBA that his analysis of the police department might be biased because of his role in contract negotiations with the union were groundless.
The PBA’s members worked for two years under the terms of a contract that expired at the end of 2002 before an arbitrator decided the terms of a new one.
Glickman said police department staffing was never an issue during arbitration. He said that staffing was a non-negotiable issue and that because the police department is part of the township that hired him, he did not see a conflict of interest.
Despite the settlement, neither side has yet signed a new contract, said Broderick.
“There have been a number of corrections in the draft contract,” the mayor said. “I understand that Mr. Salerno is ready to have the contract [signed] by all sides. No salary increases have been held back because of the signing [delay].”
Salerno did not return a call to his office on Monday.
Broderick said he had not been aware that Glickman was president of Proactive Management Systems before voting to award the contract to the company.
Glickman said his firm is based out of Marlboro, where he lives. He said it was founded about a decade ago. The firm performed one police department assessment last year, which was done for Sparta. Glickman said the Sparta assessment was substantially more complex than the one that will be done for Jackson.
Proactive Management Systems employs consultants — all of whom are former chiefs of police — to conduct the evaluations, according to Glickman. He said he has never served as a chief of police.
The results of the police department analysis are expected to be completed at the end of March, said Glickman.
Whether or not Proactive Management Systems recommends additional staffing, which Parise has said in past interviews was needed to properly serve the growing population of Jackson, the ultimate decision to hire more officers will depend on competitive funding needs in the department, said Broderick.
“We can’t pay for what we can’t afford,” the mayor told the Tri-Town News. “We’re at a high million dollar number to run that department. It’s a balancing act to hire enough staff for the department as well as provide the technological advances we need, such as the CAD communications dispatch system [which has gone] out to bid.”
The Township Committee voted on Monday to award the contract for a T-band radio communications system to Motorola and approved a resolution authorizing competitive bidding for the CAD system.
According to Robert Ryley, aide to the mayor and Township Committee, the purchase price of the T-Band radio communications system would be $4,098,899. He said two separate bonding ordinances were adopted in 2003 and 2004 for a combined total of $6 million in aggregate funding that would be used to pay for that purchase and a CAD system.
Broderick said the only other company to bid on the radio system was MATCOM. The committee had wanted to award the contract to Motorola two years ago, but Broderick said that under state regulations, the procedure had to be opened to competitive bidding. Broderick indicated he did not regret the delay since taxpayer dollars were at issue.
“We wanted to make sure we had the best bang for the buck,” he said. “As technology advances, so does the department’s need” for the latest innovations in crime fighting. “I am overwhelmed at the equipment [used today] and how it has come full circle from when I was a police officer.”