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Incoming Asbury Park City Manager John “Jack” Kelly [above] came in for criticism in a report fifteen years ago by the State Commission of Investigation [SCI] when he was Chief Financial Officer for the City of Orange.

The 1998 report — which Kelly told the Sun was “inaccurate” and “biased” — dealt with former Orange Mayor Robert Brown, as well as various officials in his administration. The report covered events up to 1995.

The report alleged that Kelly was among the city’s administrative staff who pressured vendors and lower-level employees to contribute to Brown’s campaigns, and that there was a breakdown in Orange’s bidding and financial controls on Kelly’s watch.

Kelly said that the SCI report was made at a time when the state legislature was considering not reauthorizing the commission. The report on the Orange mayor was the last one before the legislature voted, he said.

“It was written specifically to be provocative,” Kelly said.

The SCI report was referred to the Office of the Attorney General, the Division of Local Government Services, the Election Law Enforcement Commission and the Internal Revenue Service.

Kelly was not charged with any wrongdoing by any governmental agency in connection with the report, he said. In addition, Kelly said he has never faced any charges or disciplinary proceedings in regard to his work as a CFO or in his last position as the administrator of Jersey City.

By a vote of 5-0, the City Council appointed Kelly as City Manager on Jan. 8 with a contract from Feb. 1 to Dec. 31. [A new form of government will take effect in the city on Jan. 1, 2015, and the terms of all appointed positions will end on Dec. 31. Elections will be held in November to select a new mayor and council.]

Until last summer, Kelly had served three years in the administrator’s position in Jersey City. He had worked about two decades in Orange.

Mayor Myra Campbell said she first learned of the SCI report late last week.

“Had we had knowledge of this during the interview process, the interview process would probably have been more in-depth,” Campbell said. “But the state makes the final decisions and gives us the OK.”

The state has approved Kelly’s hiring, Campbell said.

Councilwoman Amy Quinn said she was aware of the SCI report, having done a Google search on Kelly before he was hired. She said the report covers events that happened 20 years ago, and that state officials had vetted Kelly and were supportive of his hire in Asbury Park.

“The state was involved in this hiring process from A-to-Z and the state vetted [Kelly] and was extremely supportive,” Quinn said.

“I voted to hire him because of his redevelopment experience, his experience renegotiating police and fire contracts and after his arrival in Jersey City there was a zero tax increase. And he got Orange off of extraordinary [state] aid,” she said.

The SCI report accused former Orange Mayor Brown of an extensive system of pressure on city employees and those doing business with the city to make contributions to his political campaigns. In 1991, 71 percent of the employees in the municipal finance department contributed to the mayor, and in 1992 80 percent did so, the report alleged.

Kelly denied pressuring his subordinates, and said that the Mayor’s campaign sent tickets to fundraisers directly to the homes of city employees, including those in his department.

“I never asked anyone to buy a ticket, nor did I care if they did,” said Kelly.

“Bob Brown’s fundraising practices were his own decision,” he said.

“The people who worked for me felt pressure when they’d receive a ticket at their home to a fundraiser for $100 or more,” he said. “People are going to feel pressure when they get an invitation for $100 [to a fundraiser] that they didn’t want to go to.”

Kelly did buy tickets himself because he wanted to politically support the mayor who appointed him, he said. The SCI report stated that Kelly made contributions to Brown in the amount of $8,205 between 1990 and 1995.

As for the allegations of a breakdown in oversight of the purchase orders, Kelly said that he was trying to fire an incompetent civil service employee who was handling accounts payable. However, the process to terminate the employee had dragged on under the civil service rules, and the problems continued under that employee, he said.

“A CFO can’t look at every purchase order,” he said. “There’s just not enough time.”

The SCI report also blamed Kelly for bidding requirements it said were ignored, particularly that items be bid when separate purchases of them cumulatively exceed the bid requirement threshold. But Kelly said that the personnel who handled tracking the bidding worked under the city administrator, not his office.

Kelly wrote an eight page response to the SCI’s initial draft report, he said. However, the SCI chose to redo its report, and gave him five days, while he was away on vacation, to do a new response to its second draft, Kelly said.

Although he requested that the SCI include his original response with the second draft, it was not included, he said.

Kelly said that the SCI report also came up during his confirmation to be the city administrator in Jersey City, and that it did not affect his hiring.

Councilwoman Susan Henderson said she opposed the move last year to hire a new city manager, as she supported the reappointment of former City Manager Terence Reidy.

The search for a new city manager was a lengthy process with a heavy number of applicants, Henderson said. Of the final three choices, Kelly was Henderson’s second choice, although not because of any issues involved in the SCI report, she said.

Henderson also said the city relied heavily on state officials in the search and selection process. “I’m trusting the state that they feel he’s a good candidate and a good person for the job,” she said.

In the past several days, Henderson spoke to state Division of Local Government Services Director Thomas Neff, who was aware of the SCI report and saw no reason it would prevent Kelly from holding the Asbury post, she said.

Kelly was never convicted or fined in connection with his tenure in Orange, and if there had been a problem he would have faced some type of action, such as the loss of his CFO certification, Henderson said.

“If there was anything to this, he would have lost his certification,” she said.

Councilman John Moor said of Kelly’s appointment that “I did my due diligence. I asked all the questions that I usually ask.” Moor did a Google search on Kelly before his hire, but would not say if he was aware of the SCI report. Moor declined any other comment saying the issue is a personnel matter.

Click here for the SCI report.

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