Morris sheriff calls freeholders takeover of jail ‘unethical’ power grab

Morris County Jail. Photo: MCSheriff.org/
The Morris County Jail. Photo: MCSheriff.org/
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By Kevin Coughlin

Accusing the Morris County freeholders of  “an abuse of power,” Sheriff Ed Rochford said their vote to assume control of the county jail  is unjustified, “unethical” and “makes no fiscal sense,” and predicted they will end up returning the lockup, as freeholders in Warren and Ocean counties have done with their jails.

The Morris freeholders, who voted 6-0 on Wednesday to take control of the jail in September, cited four “excessive” labor contracts negotiated by the sheriff, and overtime costs that have doubled since 2010 despite a declining inmate population at the facility in Morris Township.

Morris County Jail. Photo: MCSheriff.org/
The Morris County Jail. Photo: MCSheriff.org/

Rochford countered that low pay has created a high churn rate among officers at the jail, driving up overtime costs and costs of training new staff members.

“The Bureau of Corrections has seen a spike in overtime due to the continued mass departures resulting from the egregiously uncompetitive salaries. Since 2012, we have lost 39 percent of our new officers within their first two years,” Rochford said in a statement released Thursday night.

Noting a previous failed attempt by the freeholders to create a county police force, Rochford said:  “Now they are after the jail without any due diligence but rather,  just because they can.”

The sheriff contended the freeholders racked up a $60 million surplus largely “off the backs of our employees” via zero percent increases, driving officers away and spawning a financial drain that  “has grown out of control.”

Rochford said his agency has spent roughly $1.2 million in each of the last two years training replacements.

The $600,000 in additional salary and wages in the new contracts amounts to less than half of what he is spending each year in replacements, he said.

At the scheduled completion dates of those contracts — pacts that the freeholders have rejected — his employees still would have earned less than members of the Morris County prosecutor’s office, by his calculations.

The sheriff cited the jail’s national accreditation — which he said ranks it in the top one percent of jails nationally — and high marks from state inspectors as proof of solid management.

He also took exception to the way Wednesday’s freeholder vote unfolded. The sheriff said he had asked three times for a rescheduled meeting with the freeholders, because he needed to attend Wednesday’s swearing-in of Denville’s police chief as president of a chiefs association, “a huge deal” in the law enforcement community.

“No professional courtesy was given,” said Rochford, a former deputy police chief in Morris Township who was elected sheriff in 1992.

Nor was the freeholder resolution listed on the public agenda for the meeting, “which is simply downright unethical,” Rochford said.

Below is the full statement from the sheriff’s office.

FROM THE MORRIS COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE:

If It’s Not Broken, Don’t Fix It

For the first time in 275 years, the jail is being taken away from the Sheriff’s Office.  WHY?

We are still digesting all that transpired in the middle of the night, as this comes as a complete shock to us.  Never once was there expressed concern or a phone call made with regards to the management of the jail.

There is no justification for taking over the jail, as it has just received national accreditation for the 11th year in a row, ranking it in the top 1 percent of all jails in the entire country.

Chris Christie’s own State Comptroller studied all state jails and reported our jail as the fifth lowest out of the 21 counties for overtime spending. The jail is currently undergoing its annual inspection from the state and is expecting to receive a 100 percent as in past years.

“This is an abuse of power by the Freeholders.  They are playing with the taxpayers’ safety for their own political purposes.  They are legally allowed to take over the jail, but it makes no fiscal sense to do so and the taxpayers should look to Warren and Ocean Counties, where the jail was taken over by their respective Freeholder Boards and then returned to the Sheriff because it was an expense and a liability they did not actually want to bear,” Rochford explains.

The Freeholders spent hundreds of thousands of dollars with study after study trying to justify dismantling the Bureau of Law Enforcement and creating a county police, but despite their best attempts, the public outcry shut that down.  Now they are after the jail without any due diligence but rather,  just because they can.

The idea of setting up a meeting with the Freeholders to discuss the signed contracts only was originated two months ago in a meeting with County Administrator, John Bonanni.

The Freeholders conveniently chose a day that the Sheriff had to be out of town at a professional commitment.  Our very own Morris County chief, Chief Wagner from Denville, was being sworn in as the 100th President of the Chiefs Association.

This is a huge deal for the county and every law enforcement leader was in attendance to show support.  The Sheriff requested on three separate occasions to have the meeting rescheduled, citing the importance of this event, to no avail. No professional courtesy was given to reschedule.

He agreed to call into the meeting via phone so he could participate but he was not able to connect, to which the county officials claimed was due to “technical difficulties” on their end; leaving Rochford unable to participate in the meeting at all.

There was no public announcement of this Resolution on the agenda which is simply downright unethical.

In fact, Freeholder Cesaro claimed at the meeting that he also didn’t know anything about this and suggested publicly at the meeting that the vote be held off until the Sheriff could have an opportunity to speak, however the board charged forward.

Perhaps it is actions like this that caused Cesaro to separate himself from the losing incumbents Scapicchio and Krikus because he holds himself to a higher code of ethics.

The Bureau of Corrections has seen a spike in overtime due to the continued mass departures resulting from the egregiously uncompetitive salaries. Since 2012, we have lost 39 percent of our new officers within their first two years.

This equates to close to $800,000 in training costs of replacement officers and close to the same amount for overtime to fill the void of the departing officers during the lapse of time required to get a new officer approved, through the academy and up and running.

The Sheriff has addressed this with the Board of Chosen Freeholders and County officials but they have disrespectfully ignored him and his 50 years of law enforcement experience.

The Sheriff, with reaffirmed authority to do so after the May 2014 Bergen Case decision of Sheriff Saudino vs. rogue Executive Administrator Donovan, had to take things in his own hands and negotiate a reasonable contract, giving back the steps that were taken away in their last contract; steps that are standard in this profession across the country.

The Freeholders tout a $60 million surplus, much of which they accumulated off the backs of our employees in the years they took away their steps and gave them a zero percent increase.  That has hurt the agency and ultimately the county tremendously as the financial drain from this constant loss of officers has grown out of control.

As an agency we have spent roughly $1.2 million in each of the last two years in training replacements.  That doesn’t even include the money we spent on the overtime that occurred due to the void.  These new contracts collectively total about $600,000 in additional salary and wages which is less than half of what we are spending each year in replacements.

The Sheriff has brought this to the attention of the Freeholders many times, too many to enumerate, but it seems to fall on deaf ears. In fact, the Freeholders spent over four years litigating and repeatedly appealing the last Corrections union contract spending an exorbitant amount of taxpayer’ money only to be hammered by the Appellate court on the fifth appeal.  The Freeholders have used the taxpayer funds as their bottomless pit to beat down their opponents in the court room.

In this last election of the Freeholders, each candidate was asked in a public debate if they would spend 50 cents to save a dollar, to which every single one of them unequivocally agreed that they would.  This is essentially what we have here.  Increase our salary and wages by $600,000 and we will save the county far more than $1.2 million a year.

In short, the Sheriff has negotiated in good faith with his unions for the best interest of the agency and the county at large.  He has always remained fiscally responsible and conscientious.  He has acted within his legal rights and dutiful responsibilities.  The contracts are within the salary ranges set forth by the governing body themselves for county law enforcement.

The salaries three years from now will still be lower than those the Prosecutor’s Office enjoy today, so there should not be any issue.  The Freeholder Board is interfering with the Sheriff’s ability to run the agency in his fiscally conservative ways and as a result have created this overtime issue that they are now touting as mismanagement.

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