State-appointed monitor to oversee troubled New Jersey City University

State officials have appointed a monitor to oversee all fiscal operations, budgeting, and staffing at New Jersey City University, just over a year after mounting mismanagement drove trustees to declare a financial emergency and replace top administrators there.

Henry J. Amoroso, an attorney and tenured associate professor of legal studies at Seton Hall University’s Stillman School of Business, will also develop a fiscal accountability plan within six months that sets benchmarks the university must meet and actions it must take to stabilize the school’s finances.

State Secretary of Higher Education Brian K. Bridges announced the appointment Wednesday, saying Amoroso’s work should ensure the university becomes financially solvent.

“We have a responsibility to protect the significant higher education investments made by students, their families, and the state,” Bridges said in a statement.

The appointment comes three months after the state comptroller issued a report that found former school President Sue Henderson and other administrators illicitly budgeted nearly $14 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds to fix a financial crisis and hid their mismanagement from trustees, who then allowed Henderson to resign with a $288,000 severance payment, a car, and a housing subsidy.

The alleged mismanagement led to deep cuts and layoffs at the 96-year-old school in Jersey City that serves mostly low-income students of color.

It also prompted state legislators to pass a law, which Gov. Phil Murphy signed last month, requiring public colleges to submit to regular audits, file annual fiscal monitoring reports with state regulators, and require additional training for university chief financial officers. That law empowers the state to appoint fiscal monitors at schools with troubled finances, with Amoroso the first such appointment.

State Comptroller Kevin D. Walsh applauded the appointment and additional oversight NJCU faces as “positive developments — for New Jersey taxpayers and students.”

In his investigation, Walsh found that the state’s decentralized structure of public higher education enabled New Jersey City University’s poor decisions to go undetected by state officials.

“A monitor will help ensure financial accountability and transparency and protect taxpayer dollars,” Walsh said.

Amoroso said he was grateful to take the job.

“By repairing the financial harm caused by bad actors, we stand to restore confidence in the education offered and, more importantly, ensure the institution can fulfill its mission to provide high-quality education to its current students and remain a credit to the wider community,” Amoroso said in a statement.

The school serves about 6,000 undergraduate and graduate students, with 1,117 incoming freshmen enrolled, spokesman Ira Thor said.