Costly UMDNJ probe
We wrote an editorial Tuesday, "Start monitoring UMDNJ monitor," criticizing UMDNJ - again - for spending $5.8 million in six months to investigate a $5 million Medicaid fraud.
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060815/OPINION/608150355/1029
The federal monitor hired to do the investigation, Herbert J. Stern, a former federal prosecutor and judge, says it will take another 18 months to complete his work.
Fears that the investigation would result in another financial boondoggle were raised by former Assemblyman Robert Morgan, D-Monmouth, at a June 2, 2005, hearing of the Assembly Health and Human Services Committee. The discussion went like this:
MORGAN (to then UMDNJ President John Petillo): And the contract with him, what are the parameters in terms of the billing that are in place - maximum number of hours, how are we going to oversee that?
PETILLO: Can I call on General Counsel?
MORGAN: Please.
COUNSEL VIVIAN SANKS-KING: In response to your question, Assemblyman, we have not defined the hours in terms of the length of the service that Justice Stein and his firm will perform, because we anticipate, based on his recommendation to us thus far after initial review, that the scope of the review may take four to six months. So we have not nailed that down. He is being paid on an hourly rate, which is how we normally pay our counsel. He is being paid at the highest rate based on his retired service as a Supreme Court Justice.
MORGAN: Well, that's part of my concern - $425 an hour?
SANKS-KING: Yes.
MORGAN: How much is that a week?
SANKS-KING: I can't tell --
MORGAN: Seventeen thousand, six hundred dollars.
SANKS-KING: Okay.
MORGAN: That's over $850,000 a year... are we going to end up in our typical New Jersey fashion of just throwing more money at a problem and not, perhaps, getting the real result we need...?
Yup. Except that four- to six-month estimate of how long it would take to complete the investigation has now been increased to two years. The hourly rate, which Stern says is discounted, is $500, not $425. And the $850,000 annual cost calculated by Morgan - $425,000 for a six-month investigation - underestimated the true cost to date by a mere $5 million.
Again, to quote MORGAN: I think we need some prudence. ... Just because one can get something doesn't mean one ethically should accept that amount of money. I think we should get someone who has the same concerns as all of us in New Jersey and go forward to help us with this.
Advice not taken. New Jersey taxpayers ripped off again. U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie should get on the case.
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060815/OPINION/608150355/1029
The federal monitor hired to do the investigation, Herbert J. Stern, a former federal prosecutor and judge, says it will take another 18 months to complete his work.
Fears that the investigation would result in another financial boondoggle were raised by former Assemblyman Robert Morgan, D-Monmouth, at a June 2, 2005, hearing of the Assembly Health and Human Services Committee. The discussion went like this:
MORGAN (to then UMDNJ President John Petillo): And the contract with him, what are the parameters in terms of the billing that are in place - maximum number of hours, how are we going to oversee that?
PETILLO: Can I call on General Counsel?
MORGAN: Please.
COUNSEL VIVIAN SANKS-KING: In response to your question, Assemblyman, we have not defined the hours in terms of the length of the service that Justice Stein and his firm will perform, because we anticipate, based on his recommendation to us thus far after initial review, that the scope of the review may take four to six months. So we have not nailed that down. He is being paid on an hourly rate, which is how we normally pay our counsel. He is being paid at the highest rate based on his retired service as a Supreme Court Justice.
MORGAN: Well, that's part of my concern - $425 an hour?
SANKS-KING: Yes.
MORGAN: How much is that a week?
SANKS-KING: I can't tell --
MORGAN: Seventeen thousand, six hundred dollars.
SANKS-KING: Okay.
MORGAN: That's over $850,000 a year... are we going to end up in our typical New Jersey fashion of just throwing more money at a problem and not, perhaps, getting the real result we need...?
Yup. Except that four- to six-month estimate of how long it would take to complete the investigation has now been increased to two years. The hourly rate, which Stern says is discounted, is $500, not $425. And the $850,000 annual cost calculated by Morgan - $425,000 for a six-month investigation - underestimated the true cost to date by a mere $5 million.
Again, to quote MORGAN: I think we need some prudence. ... Just because one can get something doesn't mean one ethically should accept that amount of money. I think we should get someone who has the same concerns as all of us in New Jersey and go forward to help us with this.
Advice not taken. New Jersey taxpayers ripped off again. U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie should get on the case.
posted by Randy Bergmann at 10:43 AM
3 Comments:
"Former prosecutor" "Retired judge" ... aren't you sick and tired of hearing those credentials? Those guys retired from their public jobs. Now they want to earn $500/hour doing investigations -- where they themselves determine when the investigations are done. Incredible.
$425 an hour? That's an outrage. Former Senate President John O. Bennett would do the job for only $400 an hour. Of course, the job would take 3 years to complete and the actual work would be done by a sub-contracted lawyer that Bennett will pay $60 an hour, but hey, Bennett is still a bargain.
Hey, if Morgan was such a visionary whatever happen to him? Oh yea, the APP villified him. Thanks
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