Glouco administrator gets $193,169 yearly
As workers are asked to sacrifice, Chad Bruner's 5-year deal pays him more than counterparts in larger counties.
While urging his employees to consider furloughs, early retirements, and downsizing to part-time status, Gloucester County Administrator Chad Bruner is drawing a salary that exceeds that of his counterparts in much larger New Jersey counties.
The all-Democratic Board of Chosen Freeholders this month approved a five-year contract worth nearly $1 million - or $193,169 annually - for Bruner to oversee government operations for a largely rural county of 284,886 people.
The same position in neighboring Camden County, population 516,994, pays $169,008.
In Burlington County, with 446,262 residents, administrator Augustus Mosca was earning $160,139 when he left the post last month.
Bill Fey, chair of the Gloucester County Republican Party, called Bruner's salary surprising.
"This is a public servant job. He's certainly not the CEO of a corporation, and he answers to the public. For someone like that to make $1 million in five years is insane when our state is in so much trouble," he said.
Richard Dann, president of Gloucester County's employee union, CWA Local 1085, said: "I suspect that probably a number of employees would think that that salary was rather high," especially in light of the county's ongoing "belt-tightening."
Outraged employees, who didn't want to be named for fear of retribution, said they were being asked to make sacrifices while the administrator was paid handsomely. They said morale was low.
County officials said Bruner's salary was appropriate.
"We are probably the leading county in the state when it comes to regionalized services, which is requiring an enormous amount of work on the administrator's part," said Gloucester County Freeholder Director Stephen M. Sweeney.
"I think this is a very unfair comparison to look at just one salary for just one individual," said Sweeney, who is also state Senate president.
Sweeney said it was an apples-to-oranges comparison, noting, for example, that Gloucester County has just one deputy administrator to Camden County's three.
"We have 500,000 constituents . . . we have a major city in our county, so that's a little bit disingenuous," said Joyce Gabriel, spokeswoman for Camden County, where the deputy administrators oversee department heads in areas such as health and human services.
Elsewhere, county administrators earn $150,000 in Middlesex County (population 783,646), $176,376 in Monmouth County (population 641,673), $139,629 in Hudson County (population 594,334), and $178,377 in Ocean County (population 564,951).
Gloucester County spokeswoman Debra Sellitto expressed surprise when told of other county administrators' pay.
"I will tell you that [Bruner's] got a 24/7 job. . . . He's involved in every aspect of functions and operations of county government," she said.
A 2008 New Jersey Association of Counties survey found Bruner's salary that year was the second-highest in the state, after that of Somerset County's administrator.
Bruner was promoted from deputy administrator to the position in 2007 at a salary of $174,386, and is the highest-paid county employee, according to Sellitto.
The county faces a multimillion-dollar budget shortfall; Sellitto said officials were still working to determine the exact amount.
"As you may have read in the newspaper, our county like all others are facing unprecedented economic times," Bruner wrote in a memo sent to employees last month.
"Although we are not struggling as bad as most, we have a somber realization that painful cuts will be necessary. We are evaluating all options and have communicated with your local union leaders."
Bruno asked employees to contact him if they wanted to volunteer for furloughs, reduce their workweeks from 35 to 32.5 hours, change from full- to part-time status, or waive medical benefits and enroll in a spouse's coverage.
Sellitto said that Bruner was not available for comment, but that his office "is clear that they lead by example. The administrator's not going to ask the employees to do anything he wouldn't do himself, so if there are furloughs, then that would start at the top."
"We have told the county that we will look at any areas that we think that we can feasibly do with the understanding that it won't be our union members alone making sacrifices," she said.