Murphy orders audit of NJ Transit finances and personnel practices

With a crumbling concrete wall serving as a backdrop, Gov. Phil Murphy signed an executive order Monday for a comprehensive audit of NJ Transit's finances, customer service and personnel practices.

Murphy signed the order at the Summit train station, where the disintegrating concrete became a symbol last year of NJ Transit's problems.

Murphy said the audit would be the first step in restoring the troubled agency, which needs to be "boiled down to its essentials and put back together."

The audit will also include the agency's stumbling progress on installing positive train control, a collision-avoidance system Congress required a decade ago.

Murphy's push for accountability comes after months of reporting by The Record and NorthJersey.com that documented NJ Transit's troubles involving safety, employee retention and recruitment, and political patronage.

"The public deserves a true accounting of how this once-model agency fell so far, so fast," said Murphy, who took the oath of office six days ago.

Murphy invoked the movie "Network" to describe how NJ Transit riders have felt amid delayed and canceled trains, broken-down equipment and serious safety concerns.

"People are mad as heck," he said. "They deserve better."

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Murphy said the incoming state transportation commissioner, Diane Gutierrez-Scacetti, would oversee the audit. It is expected to take about three months, Murphy said.

Introducing Gutierrez-Scacetti last month, Murphy called NJ Transit a "national disgrace."

The governor gave no indication of whom he will select to succeed NJ Transit Executive Director Steven Santoro, who is stepping down in April, but he said a decision would come soon.

Even before he took office, Murphy's transition team circulated a letter to a number of the agency's top leadership asking them to resign.

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The letter appeared to take aim primarily at people who had been given promotions and pay increases because of their connections to former Gov. Chris Christie.

Still, Murphy said working under his predecessor "alone does not qualify or disqualify" anyone from continuing their employment at NJ Transit.

"A defining characteristic is going to be competence," he said.

Murphy was heavily critical of the agency during his campaign, particularly its rising fares and diminishing service. He pointed to the fare increases again on Monday — 36 percent since 2009, his office said — as one of many areas that need deeper examination. But when asked what he may do if the audit shows a need to raise rates further, Murphy said he would be "hard-pressed" to think that would be a conclusion.

"I think we have to believe that there are extraordinary inefficiencies in this organization that we can be much smarter about taking advantage of," Murphy said, while also pointing out that there are "really good souls" at the agency and that its troubles are largely due to "leadership and direction at the top."

Murphy was joined by a bipartisan group of lawmakers that included Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, D-Teaneck, Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean Jr., R-Westfield, Assemblyman John McKeon, D-Madison, and Assemblywoman Nancy Munoz, R-Summit.

Weinberg, Kean and McKeon were members of a joint legislative oversight committee that spent several months examining NJ Transit's problems after a commuter train crash at Hoboken Terminal in September 2016.

"We have taken weeks and weeks of horrifying testimony," Weinberg said.

Munoz noted that the Summit station is one of the busiest on the Morris and Essex Line, which runs to Hoboken and New York's Penn Station.

She said residents depend on reliable service for more than just getting to work.

"Property values are directly linked to our ability to commute to work," Munoz said.

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