With Jersey City Employment and Training Acting Executive Director Sudhan Thomas tendering his resignation early last week, the autonomous agency will need to seek their third executive director in 2019.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
Thomas confirmed with HCV this afternoon that he gave two weeks notice at the unpaid JCETP gig on July 22nd, declining to comment further.
The JCETP board, which is down from nine members to five after a tumultuous June, will now be tasked with finding their third executive director since January 7th.
On that date, the board narrowly voted out former Gov. Jim McGreevey (D), which he at the time blamed on firing a political operative that has previously worked with Mayor Steven Fulop.
The mayor had previously said McGreevey had misappropriated funds, a claim he vigorously denied.
Since then, Thomas and a city spokeswoman alleged that a forensic audit revealed at least $5 million were misappropriated under McGreevey’s leadership and that the investigation had been turned over to “law enforcement.”
Again, the former governor denied any wrongdoing and released eight audits produced at JCETP during his tenure as the head of the agency as proof that no malfeasance was ever committed.
Further muddying the waters is the fact that a former JCETP employee wrote a letter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the New Jersey Attorney General last month calling for an investigation into Thomas, mostly over writing three checks out to cash for a total of $16,500.
The board met on Wednesday, where Thomas still sat in on the meeting since Friday is his last day, and approved a job posting for a new executive director search.
According to the updated hiring process, all previous applicants for the executive director search will receive a call by tomorrow, the application process will close on August 15th, an executive director search team will review all applications by August 20th.
From there, the EDS team will meet on August 22nd to interview the top three candidates, where they will then select the top candidate and invite him or her to the August 27th JCETP meeting.
At that meeting, the board will review the new candidates in executive session before offering the position to a prospective candidate.
Those who believe they are qualified for the post, which will pay between $90,000 and $120,000 according to the job posting, can submit their resumes to HR@JCETP.org.
Furthermore, sources also said that the Jersey City Council will likely have the opportunity to vote on new JCETP board members at their August 14th meeting, with the hope being that a new head of the agency will be selected shortly thereafter.
Thomas also serves as the president of the board of education (another volunteer post) and is up for re-election in November. He appears poised to run on a slate backed by the Jersey City Education Association, as he did in 2016.
