TRENTON — Fearing the quick infusion of as much as $30 billion in federal funds to rebuild after Hurricane Sandy could lead to waste, fraud and corruption, Democrats in the Legislature plan to call for independent monitors to make sure the money is well-spent.

"Unfortunately, we have seen too often that people will take advantage of a crisis to better themselves at the public’s expense," Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) told The Star-Ledger Thursday. "We can’t allow that in New Jersey. These monitors will save money by ensuring funds are spent efficiently and effectively and by overseeing the ethical conduct and proper behavior of those we are entrusting to help rebuild our state."

Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-Essex) said the legislation they plan to introduce soon would provide for several paid "integrity monitors," probably working under the Treasury Department or Comptroller’s office, to oversee rebuilding projects.

They said the monitors — it was unclear how many there would be — would also be required to report to the Legislature periodically.

"The enormous taxpayer investment being placed in a recovery process of this magnitude requires extreme circumspection," Oliver said. "In some cases, whole communities must be rebuilt, and that requires accountability and transparency to ensure that these funds are being spent as they were intended."

Although New Jersey has never relied on monitors, New York City began using them in 1990 to oversee school construction.

In 2001, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani hired four firms to monitor the recovery at Ground Zero, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has frequently turned to them.

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New York City is employing monitors to oversee its own recovery from the Sandy, said Ed Stier, a New Jersey attorney who has helped oversee many projects there.

"When you’re talking about such a vast cleanup effort and so many possible things that can go wrong, having people experienced in monitoring construction projects, I think, would be a good idea," Stier said.

He said emergency projects were more vulnerable to waste and fraud because, when trying to complete them quickly, the government takes on riskier contracts in planning for longer-term work.

In New Jersey, long-planned projects have been vulnerable to abuse.

Stier said former Attorney General John Farmer Jr. wanted to have integrity monitors to oversee the $8.6 billion School Construction Corp., but the idea met with resistance in the state Legislature. The program fell prey to billions of dollars in waste and abuse.

"I said to John at the time and he agreed that project was a scandal just waiting to happen, that unless those funds were protected we were going to wind up with an extremely large-scale waste of public resources," Stier said. "And generally that’s what people think happened."

A 2006 staff report by a congressional panel found that deploying the integrity monitors for debris removal at Ground Zero was "an overwhelming success" and that they led to several fraud indictments, recovered $47 million from overbilling and "saved immeasurably more money by deterring fraud."

Kevin Roberts, a spokesman for Gov. Chris Christie, said the administration would be "happy to review" the Legislature’s proposals.

But Roberts declined to comment beyond referring to the governor’s remarks about how he wanted to work with the Legislature to rebuild the state.

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