The vice-chair of the Legislative Select Oversight Committee to investigate the Murphy Administration’s hiring practices, Senator Kristin Corrado (R-40) wants the panel to reconvene in light of questions surrounding the employment of a now-fired staff member of the governor.

“The committee left some glaring unfinished business,” Corrado said. “Summer is over. We need to get back to Trenton, sort out the mess and hold the administration accountable for what has become a long and growing list of hiring scandals.”

Jeffrey Dye, the Passaic County NAACP president and political ally of Murphy, lost his job at the Department of Labor after issuing a series of racist and anti-Semitic social media comments.

“It’s alarming the administration would ignore the red flags and give this man a job,” said Corrado. “There is clearly a systemic problem in the front office. Doesn’t character count for anything when you want a job with the Murphy team?”

The senator reiterated her call for the LSOC to complete a thorough investigation of hiring policies within the administration, and the dubious employment moves at the New Jersey Schools Development Authority and the Economic Development Authority.

“I had been calling for an investigation into hiring even before the LSOC was created, and the committee only scratched the surface,” Corrado said, adding that to “get to the bottom of this, we need witnesses released from Gov. Murphy’s non-disclosure agreements so they can testify truthfully.”

Corrado’s minority statement cited other disturbing hiring examples that should be examined by the committee, including:

• Employment of Derrick Green in the Secretary of State’s office while he was under investigation for a major campaign finance scandal in Bermuda. Green had been paid more than $2 million as a consultant for the Murphy campaign and may have connections to Dye.
• Hiring of Marcellus Jackson in the education department despite his conviction on federal corruption charges. He worked on Murphy’s gubernatorial campaign.
• Employment of Lewis Daidone at the Department of Transportation. A former executive at Citigroup, he was accused of defrauding thousands of clients by the federal Securities and Exchange Commission.