How $800 Became $80,000

A simple OPRA request turned up a startling number - the $800 per week stipend for a part-time chief financial officer had become $80,000 per year.

Correction received 10/3/2013:
 The correct salary for Mr. Glen Cullen is $41, 920.00 annually at a rate of$800.00 per week.  The salary budgeted for said position is in the amount of $42,000.00.

I actually don't know how that happened. The deal in February 2012 was for the CFO in a neighboring town to give the city five to seven hours a week of his time, for $800, to help out while the city sought a full-time CFO. That would work out to an annual rate of $41,600.

The city needed someone to fill the statutory role after Ron Zilinski quit in January. Zilinski, a retiree from Trenton, had served for about a year, giving 28 hours a week. He received $15,000 as CFO and $65,000 as treasurer. His hiring solved a problem for the mayor and council members, who were facing personal fines of $25 per day from the state if a CFO was not hired by Nov. 30, 2010. Though hired by that date, Zilinski only began work in January 2011.

Cullen, hailed by Finance Director Al Restaino as coming to the city's rescue in its time of need, was the full-time borough administrator and CFO in South Plainfield, but as noted here, Restaino expected him to help out Plainfield "before work, after work, during lunch."

City officials hoped to recruit a permanent CFO at the 2012 League of Municipalities conference, but it was canceled due to Hurricane Sandy and so Cullen stayed on.

Plaintalker's request for current salaries of non-union employees turned up a listing for Cullen at $80,000, a lot more than what was agreed on in 2012. According to Data Universe, his base salary in South Plainfield for 2012 was $148,176.

Well, this will probably be just another item for the next mayor to address. Chief financial officers are said to be few and far between. After former CFO Peter Sepelya retired at the end of 2007, the city simply did without one until the state threatened fines in 2011.

--Bernice