Residents press Gloucester Township on payroll allocations and a sewer feasibility application; council says HR and engineers will follow up

At the township’s April 28 meeting, several residents used the public-comment period to press Gloucester Township officials for documentation and oversight of payroll allocations, grant-funded positions and a recent sewer feasibility filing for Hickstown Road.

Denise Coin of Choose Landing delivered a detailed set of allegations: she said Council President Orlando Ricardo had described employee Primo Cruz’s salary as funded 28% by the mayor’s office, 39% by the law department and 33% by the sewer utility, but that the 2024 personnel budget she reviewed lists only mayor and law-department allocations. Coin also alleged that a sewer-utility employee (identified in her remarks as “Gabriella Mascara”) receives $120,000 from sewer funds while appearing to perform mayoral-office duties; that another employee’s pay exceeds the salary ordinance by $11,000; and that new programs (a veterans-affairs function and a senior-outreach initiative) were created or promoted without formal council ordinance or appropriation. She requested an independent review and cited New Jersey statutory references in support of her concerns.

Brian Burns distributed a packet and challenged apparent discrepancies between a council sewer resolution and the form-a sewer application for Hickstown Road. Burns said the resolution referenced four commercial buildings at 10,000 square feet each while the application text he reviewed described three buildings totaling 20,000 square feet and included the word "warehouses" that was not in the resolution. He asked whether all council members had received the application and questioned why the council had not invoked master-plan re-examination language or otherwise acted to preserve a site he described as a natural-heritage location.

Shaughnessy Smithman told the council she had been arrested and alleged excessive force, a failure to provide Miranda warnings, that she was not fingerprinted and that she has suffered identity problems she attributes to police handling of her case. She called for explanation and review.

Council President responded that the salary breakdown he cited earlier had been provided by the director of human resources and that he had emailed that information to the commenter. He said questions about possible misuse of dedicated sewer funds should be routed through HR and the business administrator for document review. The president also clarified that the mayor’s salary is $52,000 per year and characterized the chief of staff/sewer-director’s institutional knowledge as the reason the person appears on administrative emails; he declined to resolve civil-service classification questions on the spot and asked staff to follow up.

On the Hickstown Road item, the council and an engineer, Mr. Lee, said the form-a sewer application is a preliminary feasibility check to determine if sewer service can be provided at the site and is not an approval of specific building counts or land-use types. The engineer told the council that form-a status is for feasibility only and does not bind the council to the particulars Burns cited.

Council members acknowledged the seriousness of the payroll and civil-service questions and directed staff to provide follow-up information. Several speakers requested and the president encouraged submission of supporting documents so the administration or independent reviewers can investigate.

The meeting did not resolve the underlying allegations; residents were advised to pursue records requests or an independent review outside the meeting for formal audit or legal findings.