New Jersey watchdog warns proposal to weaken his office would benefit the powerful and undermine accountability

The head of one of New Jersey’s few watchdog agencies says mounting efforts to scuttle his office amount to nothing more than a power play by political insiders that would undermine incoming Gov. Mikie Sherrill.

“Make no mistake,” Acting State Comptroller Kevin Walsh said in a statement issued Nov. 13. “It is a naked power grab designed to weaken accountability, undermine oversight, and shield the powerful from scrutiny. It would also thwart the governor-elect’s administration’s ability to investigate corruption and protect tax dollars.”

The Comptroller’s Office, an independent state agency in the executive branch, works to promote integrity and transparency at all levels of New Jersey government by auditing government finances, examining the efficiency of government programs, investigating misconduct by government officers, scrutinizing the legality of government contracts, and overseeing the integrity of New Jersey’s Medicaid program.

Walsh, a hard-charging civil rights attorney who was appointed by Gov. Phil Murphy to lead the agency in 2020, has ruffled feathers in Trenton by taking on some of the most powerful figures in New Jersey politics, including Democratic Party boss George Norcross.

Norcross allies in the state Senate, led by state Sen. James Beach of Camden County, have refused to sign off on Walsh’s confirmation, so he has remained an acting comptroller since his appointment five years ago. Senatorial courtesy is an unwritten rule practiced in the New Jersey Senate. A senator can block consideration of a nomination by the governor when the nominee is from the senator’s home county or district.

The comptroller’s unusual public statement followed media reports that Senate President Nicholas Scutari, a Union County attorney who has presided over successful efforts to weaken the state’s public records law, declaw state election law regulators, and gut campaign finance reform, is now planning legislation to transfer the investigatory power of the State Comptroller’s office to the State Commission of Investigation. 

The commission, an independent fact-finding agency, monitors and assesses the threat posed by organized crime and recommends new laws and other systemic remedies to address government waste, fraud, and abuse. Established in 1968, SCI has conducted more than 135 investigations. 

In January, Scutari told reporters that he would consider merging the comptroller’s office with the State Commission of Investigation because New Jersey, he argued, has too many anti-corruption agencies.

“I think what we have is a lot of watchdogs, a lot of them,” Scutari said. “We have ELEC [the Election Law Enforcement Commission], SCI, we have the comptroller, the attorney general’s office, we have county prosecutors. One of these days, we’re going to have to look at consolidation of those efforts.”

Ethics experts and good-government advocates say New Jersey continues to live up to its pop-culture reputation for political corruption. The state has some of the weakest ethics disclosure policies in the nation, they point out, with a part-time Legislature consisting largely of lawyer-lawmakers who routinely vote on issues that affect their private-sector clients.

Former U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, a Democrat who began his long political career as a party boss in Hudson County, is serving an 11-year prison sentence after federal investigators caught him hoarding gold bars and cash payments from foreign favor seekers.

Wayne Bryant, a disgraced former state senator from Camden who served 26 years in Trenton, spent 40 months in prison after a 2008 pension fraud and bribery conviction.

Ex-Gov. James McGreevey resigned from office in 2004, claiming he was being blackmailed by his secret gay lover, an Israeli national he had named as New Jersey’s top homeland security expert despite having no experience in that field. Former Gov. Chris Christie, who served as U.S. attorney for New Jersey from 2002 to 2008, prosecuted and secured convictions for 130 public officials for corruption during his tenure.

“There is no shortage of corruption to uncover,” Walsh said in his statement. “It’s hard to see how reducing independent oversight would benefit anyone, except the powerful politicians and interests that OSC has investigated. If anything, the government needs more rigorous independent oversight and accountability, not less.”

Since taking office five years ago, Walsh has published more than 100 reports and says his office has recovered more than $670 million in public funds. He has aggressively pursued Medicare fraud and other corporate wrongdoing in state nursing homes and uncovered $34 million in deficits in pension funds.

In September, Walsh issued a sweeping report detailing how health insurance funds serving hundreds of local governments and school boards were effectively taken over by a private, for-profit company in violation of conflict-of-interest rules and public contracting laws meant to prevent corruption and safeguard public money.

According to the report, the insurance firms Conner Strong & Buckelew and PERMA improperly gained control of public entities’ contracting processes and influenced how multimillion-dollar contracts were written, awarded, and priced, even as they competed for and won some of the same government contracts. Norcross took a leave of absence as executive chairman of Conner Strong & Buckelew in 2024. His firm bought PERMA in 2007 for $10 million,

Allies of Norcross pushed back hard on Walsh’s findings, claiming the comptroller’s report was politically motivated and fraught with errors. Walsh’s office has stood by its work.

“These are not theoretical problems — they are real abuses of public trust that cost the state real money,” Walsh said. “Transferring these powers to a body in part controlled by legislative leadership would undermine the independent oversight.”

Full statement of Acting State Comptroller Kevin Walsh

For the last few years, in response to reports I have issued, powerful politicians, government vendors, and interest groups in New Jersey have attacked the Office of the State Comptroller and suggested ways to prevent the office from conducting independent oversight. The latest effort appears to come from Senate leadership and involves a proposal to move OSC’s investigatory powers to the State Commission of Investigation, an agency that, not coincidentally, reports in part to Senate leadership.  

While this is being framed as being about efficiency, make no mistake: it is a naked power grab designed to weaken accountability, undermine oversight, and shield the powerful from scrutiny. It would also thwart the Governor-elect’s administration’s ability to investigate corruption and protect tax dollars through an independent State Comptroller the Governor-elect appoints. 

OSC is an independent watchdog and is insulated from political interference. While SCI is an important part of government oversight in New Jersey, it has a different mission and structure. It is governed by four commissioners, one of whom is appointed by the Senate leader. Any investigation that the Governor requests, like Governor Murphy did with the Economic Development Authority (EDA) and New Jersey City University, would be subject to a vote by the commissioners.  Governors should not have to rely on legislative appointees to ensure effective investigations of the state and local government.  

Further, as my reports and the reports of my predecessors have shown, there is no shortage of corruption to uncover. It’s hard to see how reducing independent oversight would benefit anyone, except the powerful politicians and interests that OSC has investigated.  If anything, the government needs more rigorous independent oversight and accountability, not less. 

Since I joined OSC in early 2020, we’ve published over 100 reports and recovered more than $670 million in public funds from FY 2020 to 2025. Our investigations have made recommendations involving many millions of dollars of savings for state and local governments. We have uncovered, among other things:  

• Conflicts of interest and violations of law by health insurance funds and their vendors involving over 100,000 public employees 

• $34 million in deficits in lifeguard pension funds 

• 109 school bus companies failing to meet safety documentation standards 

• Over $1 million spent on private police training found to be unconstitutional  

• Widespread violations of laws prohibiting wasteful boat check payments by local governments 

These are not theoretical problems — they are real abuses of public trust, that cost the state real money. Transferring these powers to a body in part controlled by legislative leadership would undermine the independent oversight. It would weaken OSC’s ability to expose corruption, protect taxpayer dollars, and hold powerful institutions accountable.   

I send every report my office releases to legislative leadership and offer to answer questions about our findings. We have focused on important issues taxpayers care about, including unlawful sick leave payouts, insurance brokers’ role in rising health insurance costs, illegal raises in county governments, poor quality nursing homes, racial profiling, school bus safety, Medicaid fraud, and misspent opioid settlement funds. 

Despite the importance of these issues to New Jersey, I have never been invited by the Senate leadership to discuss our findings or work on legislative solutions. At a time when the state is facing a budget crunch, and the public is clamoring for government that works for them, it is troubling that a house of the Legislature would spend time crafting a proposal to squash oversight – rather than tackling the problems OSC has identified.  

I have not been contacted by anyone in the Legislature about this proposal.  I would welcome the chance to explain to legislators why stripping OSC of its investigatory powers and independence would be a terrible idea — one that would cost taxpayers and weaken the foundations of democratic accountability in New Jersey.