[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC STING] - We're now joined by Kevin Walsh, who is the acting New Jersey state comptroller.

Kevin, good to have you with us.

- Thanks for having me.

- Describe the role of the state comptroller, and hopefully we'll be able to put up a website so people can find out more about what you and your colleagues do in the Comptroller's Office.

- Sure, so the Office of the State Comptroller is an independent office that functions as a watchdog for the executive branch.

About 2,000 entities are under our jurisdiction.

And we find facts and we share them with the public, with the goal of making government more transparent and accountable.

- Along those lines, the Comptroller's Office involved in a report.

There's a report that came out about the New Jersey State Police, correct?

- Yes, sir.

- What is the most alarming aspect of that report in terms of your findings?

- We're required annually to evaluate whether the New Jersey State Police is complying with reforms that have been put in place for a couple of decades now following a consent decree with the United States Department of Justice.

And our job- - Hold, on Kevin.

Let's put that in perspective.

The federal government got involved because racial profiling had been going on for many years involving New Jersey State Police, people on the highways, disproportionately African American, Latino being pulled over, stopped, racially profiling.

Feds came in, consent decree.

Pick it up from there, Kevin.

- Yeah, so the consent decree was in place for about a decade.

And in 2009, it ended, and this office was asked by the legislature to report annually on whether the State Police and the Attorney General's Office are complying with the requirements of that consent decree.

And so we're supposed to issue a report every year.

We issued a report this year.

We took a look at the process by which the New Jersey State Police evaluates whether the data trends show any discrimination is occurring.

And so the motor vehicle stops result in data.

That data is analyzed.

And what we found is the State Police, although it analyzed the data, although it met on it, it generally did a bad job of doing anything in response to it.

There was no action taken, despite pretty troubling trends in the data.

- Listen, you can check out our interview with the head of the, the superintendent of the State Police.

Check out our website.

But I'm curious about this.

From your perspective, Kevin, is it your job as the comptroller, along with your team, to try to understand why nothing was done or very little was done?

- Yeah, that's what we do.

- Or is it just to report that not much was done?

- Yeah, we take a look at the documents.

We conduct interviews.

We ask those sorts of questions.

And what we found out is that the data showed, year after year, that people of color in New Jersey were more likely to be pulled over.

Once pulled over, they were more likely to be searched.

And those searches were less likely than the white folks who were pulled over to be successful, and they were more likely to have force used again 'em.

So we asked the State Police, and then we asked the Attorney General's Office, "What are you doing about this?

Your job is to proactively address these risks."

And we were disappointed to find out that, although they meet on it a lot, although they collect and analyze a lot of the data, there are few answers coming from the State Police about what the cause of this is and there's no action.

- So the head of the State Police reports to the attorney general?

- That's right.

- Who's responsible for the lack, from your perspective, the lack of progress, the lack of improvement over the fact that New Jersey has this long history of racial profiling.

And your report showed what it did.

Who's responsible?

- It's a really multi-layered problem that has been developing for more than a decade.

And so there's a lot of people who are responsible.

Multiple systems, it seems, have broken down.

My sense is that it's, there's sorta been a collective shrug of the shoulders at the State Police from very high-ranking people who are responsible for advising the superintendent on these things.

But in the Attorney General's Office, they were asking the right questions.

They asked the right questions year after year, meeting after meeting, and they didn't get any answers.

And so it is an issue that we have asked the State Police and the Attorney General's Office by August to report back to us what they're gonna do.

Because we made a commitment as a state that our highways will be free of discrimination, and thus far, we're not doing everything we can to keep that commitment.

- The Comptroller's Office, is it your job to examine not just state government, but every level of government?

Because you had very specific things to say about certain public officials and certain local governments across the state and how you felt they spent state dollars as it relates to COVID.

So it's not just state government; it's other governments as well.

Who, what- - Yeah so- - Receive state dollars?

- Yeah.

Our job is to oversee the entire executive branch, to uncover the facts, and to report on them and to make recommendations for improvement.

And so that applies to the smallest water commission and sewer authority, all the way up to the largest state agency.

And as an independent agency, we report the facts independently.

The work we do, it's my decision, usually, as to what we focus on.

And we share the facts about fraud, waste, abuse, inefficiency, and in this case, a system that's broken down around preventing discrimination.

- So I wanna be clear.

You don't report to the governor, correct?

- We're independent, and so the governor does not tell us what to do.

We literally send our reports to the governor and to the legislative leadership, but as an independent agency, the Governor's Office doesn't tell us what to do.

We've been empowered under law to act independently on behalf of the residents and taxpayers of New Jersey.

- So you don't have a boss who is the governor?

See, the attorney general's independent, but the attorney general's appointed by the governor.

You were appointed by?

- By the governor.

- But you don't report to the governor?

- Who acts independently like the attorney general.

- Okay.

So do you, I got about a minute left.

Do you care, Kevin, who gets peeved what you and your colleagues conclude, what your reports, your research, your finding, what your findings are?

Do you care what anyone thinks about your conclusions and reports?

- Yeah, I'd like the residents of New Jersey to know that we're reporting the facts in a straightforward way, in an independent way.

But upsetting folks sometimes, Steve, that is a part of being the watchdog.

And I'm proud to do that job on behalf of the residents of the state.

- Kevin Walsh is the acting New Jersey state comptroller.

Kevin, thank you very much.

We appreciate you joining us.

- Thank you.

- You got it, I'm Steve Adubato.

Thank you so much for watching.

We'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] State of Affairs with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Celebrating 30 years in public broadcasting.

Funding has been provided by Kean University.

NJM Insurance Group.

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

New Brunswick Development Corporation.

Veolia, Atlantic Health System.

And by PSEG Foundation.

Promotional support provided by Insider NJ.

And by NJBIZ.

(grand music) - [Announcer] To watch more State of Affairs with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- Hi, I’m Doctor Jones, and I’m encouraging all women 40 and over to schedule their mammograms.

Mammograms detect breast cancer early when it’s easiest to treat.

As a woman of color, I know the instance of breast cancer Including the most aggressive type, triple negative, is higher for us, and we’re often diagnosed later when treatment is more difficult.

So it’s important to start annual screenings at age 40.

Please don’t skip your mammogram, schedule yours today and ask all the women in your life to schedule theirs.