NJ Transit senior employees asked to resign in Murphy letter

Gov.-elect Phil Murphy sent a letter Tuesday to NJ Transit's executive director requesting the resignations of a number of senior employees by Thursday as part of the incoming administration's transition plan for the beleaguered agency.

The letter, obtained by The Record and NorthJersey.com, said the resignation letters should be submitted no later than 4:30 p.m. Thursday. It also said that those who submitted such letters would continue in their current roles unless their resignations are accepted by noon on Jan. 16, the day Murphy will take the oath as governor.

The letter indicates that the list of names is "confidential."

Multiple people with knowledge of the letter confirmed that the list includes Jacqueline Halldow, the agency's chief of staff; Deb Prato, the head of human resources; Robert Lavell, vice president and general manager of rail operations; Joyce Zuczek, secretary of the NJ Transit board; and Warren Hersh, the agency's auditor general.

Halldow was deputy chief of staff for communications for Gov. Chris Christie from April 2016 until May 2017, when she returned to her old job at NJ Transit, making $24,000 more a year. Zuczek has been with NJ Transit since its creation in 1979.

Lavell testified before state lawmakers on Monday that the agency had lost experienced managers to retirement and other railroads and struggled to attract qualified replacements because it could not offer competitive salaries.

Meanwhile, Halldow and nine other NJ Transit employees with ties to Christie received promotions and pay increases, as The Record and NorthJersey.com reported last month.

The Murphy transition and NJ Transit did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The letter indicated that "selected individuals" would be notified of the acceptance of their resignation or the opportunity to be interviewed for other roles in the Murphy administration.

"Continuity of critical services is a factor that may be considered in the selection of interview candidates," said the letter, which was signed by Jose Lozano, executive director of the Murphy transition.

New administrations typically seek resignations from certain employees before taking over, and Murphy’s transition issued similar letters to other departments of state government Tuesday.

However, at NJ Transit, Murphy is asking for a large number of senior workers to leave at a time when the agency is under intense scrutiny for a series of lapses.

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Murphy and his incoming transportation commissioner, Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti, will have a formidable task ahead in rebuilding NJ Transit. The nation's largest statewide public transportation provider carries nearly 1 million passenger trips a day on its rail and bus routes. Serious questions have emerged in recent years about its safety and reliability.

As The Record and NorthJersey.com have reported in recent months, the agency has suffered a drain of experienced managers and front-line employees who are essential to its rail operations.

NJ Transit lost a quarter of its rail managers from 2014 to 2016 to retirements or jobs from Connecticut to Florida. It faced scrutiny from the Federal Railroad Administration over its safety compliance practices.

NJ Transit has been losing locomotive engineers to New York's Metro-North and other commuter railroads, likely worsening a chronic problem of delayed and canceled trains.

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It is far behind in its progress on installing positive train control, a collision avoidance system Congress requires by the end of December.

During this chaotic period, 10 NJ Transit employees with ties to Gov. Chris Christie got promotions and pay increases, some as much as $70,000.

Announcing his selection of Gutierrez-Scaccetti last month in Secaucus, Murphy called NJ Transit a "national disgrace."

In February, the National Transportation Safety Board will announce its findings of its investigation into a September 2016 commuter train crash at Hoboken Terminal. One person was killed and more than 100 others were injured in that incident, which raised new concerns about the safety of the organization.

Murphy and Gutierrez-Scaccetti must also select a new executive director for the agency. Steven Santoro said last week that he would step down from that role in April.