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Perth Amboy won't explain why city official was paid more than legally allowed

City Council never approved Peter Pelissier's appointment despite law requiring vote after 90 days.

Sergio Bichao
@sbichao
Peter Pelissier is no longer working for Perth Amboy, but questions are still being asked about his appointment.
  • City Council to hire an attorney to investigate mayor's appointment.
  • City Hall won't explain salary, vacation discrepancies.
  • State agency reviewing complaint from other city.

PERTH AMBOY – The city’s interim business administrator worked his last day at City Hall this week, but it won’t be the last the city will hear about him.

That’s because Peter Pelissier’s four-month stints as interim and assistant business administrator has left questions about whether his employment was legal in the first place, and whether he was entitled to all the pay and benefits that he received.

The City Council voted 4-0 Wednesday  to hire an attorney to investigate Pelissier’s appointment by Mayor Wilda Diaz.

Pelissier, meanwhile, is being examined by the Investigative Divisions of the state Comptroller’s Office, which acknowledged last month that it is “reviewing” complaints about Pelissier from Rahway, where he once served as business administrator. The division is tasked with uncovering wrongdoing and waste by government officials and agencies.

More money in paycheck

Despite a letter from Diaz stating that Pelissier would receive no change in pay after she appointed him assistant businesses administrator effective Jan. 5, Pelissier’s biweekly paychecks in January increased by $131, according to a review of city documents obtained by MyCentralJersey.com and the Home News Tribune.

(Above: Record of recent paycheck payments to Pelissier.)

The mayor’s letter itself contradicts the city’s own salary ordinance, adopted by the City Council in December. The city law limits the assistant business administrator’s salary to $106,765. But Pelissier was earning at least $50,622 more than that limit this year.

(Above: Salary guide adopted December 2015. Below: Diaz's hiring letter showing his original salary, which Diaz later said would be unchanged in his new role as assistant business administrator.)

City officials on Thursday declined to explain the discrepancy in Pelissier’s pay or the apparent contradiction of the city's salary ordinance. Pelissier could not be reached for comment Friday.

His hiring never approved

The biggest question may be whether Pelissier was entitled to get paid at all after December.

State and city law does not allow business administrators appointed by a mayor to work any more than 90 days without the approval of the City Council.

Diaz appointed Pelissier in September with a start date of Oct. 5. But the appointment was never presented to the City Council for a vote.

Instead, Diaz wrote Pelissier on Jan. 27 informing him that he had been retroactively appointed assistant business administrator starting Jan. 5.

(Above: Diaz's retroactive appointment of Pelissier.)

That retroactive appointment, meanwhile, creates another twist. When Diaz was out of town last month, she appointed Pelissier as acting mayor from Jan. 15 to 25 but the city code only allows department heads or the city clerk to serve in the absence of the mayor.

(Above: Communication from Mayor Diaz on City Council meeting agenda.)

Paid vacations

Employment records also show that Pelissier took 14 paid vacation days: two in November, seven in December (not including Christmas), and five in January. But it is not clear whether he was entitled to paid time off.

The mayor’s employment letters make no mention of time-off benefits and the city’s agreement with so-called white-collar supervisors permits just a single day of vacation for every month worked for first-year workers.

(Above: Page from Pelissier's work calendar.)

The city claimed in response to an Open Public Records Act request by resident Allan Silber that Pelissier had no employment contract detailing time-off benefits. A copy of the city’s response on Feb. 16 was provided to MyCentralJersey.com and the Home News Tribune.

“It looks like she made a separate deal with him,” Silber, an ally-turned-critic of Diaz, said Thursday. “The lawyer, the mayor and the City Council have an obligation to go by that city code and she refuses to do it. Everything about Pelissier proves how defiant she is to the citizens of Perth Amboy.”

A spokeswoman for Diaz declined to explain Pelissier’s vacation payments, instead releasing the following statement attributed to Business Administrator Adam Cruz, who was hired Feb. 11:

Mayor Wilda Diaz is facing questions about her appointment of an interim business administrator.

“Mr. Peter Pelissier has served the public on many occasions, first as an honorable member of the U.S. military, as a professional city administrator for more than 30 years, and lastly under this administration as an interim administrator for the past four months. His extensive knowledge, skill-set and integrity provided a smooth transition to best serve 50,000+ residents in the City of Perth Amboy, during the search for a permanent business administrator.”

RELATED: Why did Perth Amboy mayor have cop drive her to Brooklyn wedding?

What's at stake: See Orange

Violating the city code and the state's Faulkner Act charter law is not without serious consequences. Just last week, a Superior Court judge in Newark ordered the former deputy business administrator for the City of Orange to pay back the salary he earned for the three years he worked without approval of the Township Council.

Judge Christine Farrington said state and local law limits acting appointments to 90 days. Furthermore, the Orange mayor had no right to appoint former Assemblyman Willis Edwards III as a deputy because the Faulkner Act only allows the administrator to hire a deputy.

“It is important to consider the purposes of the requirement of advice and consent, which is to limit the mayor’s unilateral appointment power, and constitute a structural safeguard upon the separation of powers,” Farrington said in her decision.

Peter Pelissier with the- Mayor James Kennedy when Pelissier was Rahway's business administrator.

Trouble in Rahway

Pelissier previously worked in Rahway, where he battled with then-Mayor Rick Proctor until he agreed to leave at the end of 2012 after getting the city to pay him $163,334 in unused vacation and sick days in exchange for not suing.

In 2014, the state Comptroller’s Office chided Rahway for allowing Pelissier and the former city clerk to receive overtime they were not entitled to.

In 2007, the state pension board voted to make Pelissier pay back $330,000 in pension benefits he received while working as a redevelopment consultant for Rahway after retiring from the city’s redevelopment agency. But the board decided to revisit the case the following year. It was not clear Friday what the board eventually concluded because the state Department of the Treasury on Friday had not yet provided the case records requested earlier this month by MyCentralJersey.com and the Home News Tribune.

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Staff Writer Sergio Bichao: 908-243-6615; sbichao@mycentraljersey.com