Reply #13: more -- sneaky under-the-radar move [View All]

[Hannah Bell]

The Christie administration appears to be moving quietly behind the scenes to take the next step in privatizing the Department of Environmental Protection, without filling the public or the Legislature in on the plan. Environmental advocates who’ve learned about this plan are understandably alarmed.

Here’s the story: The Treasury Department has just issued a Request for Proposals on behalf of the DEP. Treasury is seeking a private contractor who will review and process a variety of DEP land use permits, including applications to develop in wetlands, flood hazard areas, and riparian areas.

This raises some very troubling questions. Why is this being done with no public debate? Where are the safeguards that should make the public comfortable that these private contractors will be properly screened and supervised? Or is this merely an end-run around civil service requirements and union contracts, so DEP can replace those pesky employees who often say no with more sympathetic contract permit reviewers?

To be fair, DEP and other state agencies have occasionally used private contractors to help with paperwork backlogs. Yet the job description for these new contractors far exceeds the role that “temps” would normally play, and few application backlogs exist in this down economy. In fact, when describing the qualifications that successful bidders should have, the RFP mimics the requirements of several DEP job descriptions.

Further, the RFP states that the contractor would be responsible for determining administrative completeness of applications, conducting the technical review of the application, writing the final permit decision document and then recommending to the appropriate DEP supervisor whether the permit should be approved or denied. Given these responsibilities, it is hard to imagine how a DEP land-use supervisor could do anything but accept the contractor’s recommendation.


http://blog.nj.com/njv_guest_blog/2010/09/a_stealth_move_to_privatize_la.html