Steve Sweeney could be paid up to $287K in new Gloucester County job he’s expected to be appointed to Friday night

Former New Jersey Senate President Steve Sweeney is poised to land a six-figure salary in Gloucester County, after finishing last in the six-way Democratic primary for New Jersey governor in June.

The Gloucester County Board of Commissioners is slated to appoint Sweeney as county administrator at its public reorganizational meeting Friday evening. The role has a salary rage of $191,308 to $287,168.

The resolution appointing Sweeney, 66, to the position is tucked away in an unsearchable 236-page packet posted online Friday afternoon, just hours before the meeting. It does not say what Sweeney will be paid, but the document specifies that the county will provide him with a vehicle that can be utilized for personal use – “as in the past,” the resolution notes.

Sweeney will replace Chad Bruner, the county’s longtime administrator who recently stepped down. Bruner chairs Rowan University’s Board of Trustees, which Sweeney joined in September.

The resolution is expected to easily win approval by the board, which is composed of five Democrats and two Republicans.

The board’s two Republican members, Chris Konawel Jr. and Nicholas DeSilvio, said they were kept out of the loop about Sweeney’s appointment. They criticized what they say was a lack of a transparent hiring process.

“I know we didn’t do a search because we’ve been asking for a whole month, ‘What is the process? What are we doing?’” Konawel said in a video he posted on Facebook Wednesday.

“Nick and I are your elected officials and they don’t even answer us,” he added.

Sweeney’s contract will last 5 years, the maximum for the role.

Sweeney, a longtime friend of power broker George Norcross and an ironworker union leader, served the longest tenure as state Senate president, the most powerful position in New Jersey government aside from governor.

But the West Deptford Democrat lost his reelection in 2021 to Trump-aligned Republican Ed Durr, a truck driver with little funding who planned to also run for governor before dropping out last year.

The Republican commissioners first found out that Sweeney was picked for the role through the rumor mill weeks ago when department heads were given a heads-up behind closed doors, Konawel said.

Konawel and DeSilvio each questioned Sweeney’s credentials in part because he didn’t attend college.

“I kind of thought that they would actually go through a process to pick somebody qualified. I didn’t think they would just give it to Steve Sweeney, but that’s what they did,” DeSilvio said.

Sweeney and Democratic leaders on the county board could not be reached on Friday for comment.

Since leaving the state Senate, Sweeney served as the founding chair of a think tank at Rowan University called The Steve Sweeney Center for Public Policy.

He attempted a political comeback last year, but his campaign for governor failed to gain traction outside of South Jersey and he did worse than expected even within the region.

Sweeney ran to the right of his opponents on certain issues, like by saying he would get rid of the state’s sanctuary policy for undocumented immigrants, a stance touted by Republicans.

He avoided the press in the final days of his campaign and left his party quietly just minutes after his loss, which signaled another failure of the South Jersey party machine. He won Gloucester and Salem Counties by wide margins but lost to Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill in the other three southern counties that endorsed him.

As county administrator, Sweeney will oversee all county department heads and can sign off on all personnel actions. The powerful role also comes with the authority to help prepare the county budget, authorize payments, take part in board discussions (without voting power), inquire into county operations, and sign off on behalf of the clerk of the board if the clerk is absent.

County administrators are paid six figure salaries throughout the state, but Gloucester County has developed a reputation for paying its administrator particularly well.

Bruner was the second highest paid county administrator in the state at $253,324 in 2023, according to data compiled by the Bergen Record. The highest county administrator salary that year was in Middlesex County, which has more than double the population of Gloucester, according to the Census Bureau.

Sweeney cannot be removed from the role without cause for the duration of his contract, and if he is, he will still receive his remaining salary, according to the resolution. He will be eligible for raises.

Attorney General Matt Platkin expressed disapproval over the position’s high salary last month, noting that Gloucester’s County administrator was making more than the governor, whose salary is $175,000 and will raise to $210,000 this year when Sherrill takes office.

“A county administrator making $100k more than the current governor’s salary is a pretty good argument to keep the comptroller as an independent agency to combat waste, fraud, and abuse in local government,” Platkin said in a social media post in early December when the state legislature was considering an ultimately unsuccessful bill to limit the watchdog’s power.