I spoke today with Sue Grant, Lead Investigator with the New Jersey Pension Fraud and Abuse Unit. She informed me that her office is interested in receiving requests to investigate whether a particular public official is properly enrolled in the state pension system. For each such investigation requested, she invited me to complete the “Referral Form” that is available from the Unit’s web site here.
While she assured me that the requests are taken seriously and investigated thoroughly, she also told me that the Unit would not acknowledge receipt of Referral Forms and is not permitted to correspond with or give progress reports to citizens who submit Referral Forms. She recommended that interested citizens follow up with the local agency that appointed or elected the public official to see what action, if any, the local agency took.
I will endeavor to submit Referral Forms for each suspected instance of fraud and abuse. I will keep track of those Referral Forms by way of an on-line Excel roster, which is on-line here, and can be accessed by anyone who wishes to see the Referral Forms I have so far submitted.
To learn more about the pension abuse problem in New Jersey, please see my blog entry here.
