Posted on 03/15/2006 5:28:03 AM PST by Calpernia
"A glorified patronage mill," that's how Assemblyman Peter Barnes describes the state's Victims of Crime Compensation Board (VCCB) which was designed to use monetary penalties that were imposed on criminals to help compensate their victims for their pain and suffering. He says, "Instead of protecting and advocating for crime victims, the board too often came under fire for being concerned about maintaining its status quo of bloated salaries."
Under a bill Barnes is co-sponsoring in the Assembly, the VCCB would be streamlined to consist of an executive director and an unpaid hearing board advisory panel. The current chairman of the VCCB would serve as the executive director until a qualified replacement is found. Currently, the board's membership is comprised of five paid full-time board members, who receive salaries of more than $100,000 a year and also gain tenure in their positions after ten years of service.
Barnes says he's investigated the board members and found, "one of them was absent from work for about 60 days in one year and over a period of about five years, didn't show up for work for 63 weeks." That employee is raking in $115,000 annually. Barnes says, "In the private sector, they would have been fired but, in government I guess you can have a job paying $115,000 and not show up."
The lack of personnel actually on the job is also slowing the process of compensating the victims because the manpower isn't there to file the proper paperwork. Barnes says, "People are getting paid, $115-$120,000 dollars a year and don't show up for work and when they show up they don't even work." He estimates that, if his bill is signed into law it will save $500,000 dollars annually. The measure passed the full Assembly last year only to die in the State Senate.
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Toporek, who served in Gov. Brendan T. Byrne's administration, took almost 320 vacation, sick and administrative leave days from 2000 to 2005, according to statistics compiled by Assemblyman Peter Barnes, D-Middlesex.
Johnson, former chairwoman of the Morris County Republican Organization, took 201 days off in that period.
McConnell has been off 123 days since she started at the board in 2002. She is the past president of the Women's Political Caucus of New Jersey.
"I was absolutely astounded that people could work for the state of New Jersey ... and not show up for work," said Barnes, who led the hearings last year.
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Pompelio, a longtime crime-victim advocate whose son was killed in 1989, said the commissioners often bickered over claims that were clearly legitimate. He also said white victims often got preferential treatment and claims by black victims were questioned more often and took longer to pay.
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Kathy Garcia, who served as a member of the board's citizen advisory council, said, "I tried to advocate for victims and it was impossible to do. We need changes. Victims are not being served in this state."
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-2/114240265472090.xml&coll=1
Reform of crime victim board gets renewed push in Trenton
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The board has been plagued by unfair denials, inordinate delays in processing claims, backlogs and a bias against minorities, said Richard Pompelio, a Sparta lawyer who served as chairman until resigning last summer. He himself is a crime victim, having lost his son, Anthony, to a murder more than 16 years ago.
"If you look at the makeup of the board, you'd say it was a joke until you realize, 'It's my taxpayer money paying for this,'" Pompelio added.
He cited one case where the board put off for so long helping an elderly woman pay for her grandson's funeral after he was killed in a drive-by shooting that she was forced to take out a loan and ended up paying more in interest than the funeral cost.
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ping
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