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At Civic JC’s budget forum held last night at City Hall (look for our full report on the event tomorrow morning) business administrator Jack Kelly waded into touchy waters, saying that his job of balancing the budget is made all the more difficult because a large chunk of it is devoted to the police and fire departments, both of which are, politically, very difficult to cut. And today he is facing criticism from his boss and from the police officers union for it.

“God forbid we reduce police and fire,” he said, expressing what may well be pent-up frustration at the ongoing negotiations between the police officers’ union and the administration, during which plenty of “Fire Jack Kelly!” chants have erupted at police protests.

“The fire department says that if we reduce the size of the force there will be a fire on every block. The police [claim] that there will be more burglaries,” he said. “While statistics do show that there are safer streets with more police,” he urged that residents consider the information in terms of the “scale of diminishing returns.”

“Just because we have 1,000 more cops doesn’t mean we’ll have 1,000-times safer streets,” he said. ”You’ll hear them say the sky is falling if we reduce their workforce.”

Kelly’s comments led both Jersey City Police Officers Benevolent Association (POBA) president Jerry DeCicco and Mayor Jerramiah Healy to criticize the business administrator in separate statements released to the press today. Kelly’s comments came several days after union leaders and the Healy administration came to a deal that may avert the layoff of 82 police officers and seven civilian employees in the police department, and DeCicco said today that Kelly’s comments show he “clearly” has a “distain [sic] and lack of respect” for the city’s police officers.

“His behavior is reprehensible, especially because his comments were made less than 24 hours after good will was established between the mayor and the POBA,” DeCicco said. “Jack Kelly is an out-of-town multi-public sector employee who has single-handily [sic] doomed the vote to failure through his bizarre comments.”

Meanwhile, Mayor Healy hung the man tasked with curing the city’s budget woes out to dry in a statement, calling Kelly’s comments “disparaging” and putting him in his place, as it were, saying: “Jack Kelly is the business administrator; he is not the spokesperson for the city and he certainly is not the mayor. His responsibilities include many things, but amongst them is certainly not disparaging our public safety personnel.”

Here’s the full text of the mayor’s statement that was released this afternoon

As most people know, since I took office more than six years ago, I have always cited public safety as issue number one. We are proud of our knowledgeable and brave police officers and firefighters. Jack Kelly is the business administrator; he is not the spokesperson for the city and he certainly is not the mayor. His responsibilities include many things, but amongst them is certainly not disparaging our public safety personnel.

For the last two months, we have been working constantly and tirelessly with the leaders of the Jersey City Police Officers Benevolent Association and are close to a resolution of our requests that the union leadership has been good enough to consider and endorse. We are currently awaiting a vote of the full membership of the POBA, which if favorable, will continue to provide the people of Jersey City with the finest police protection on earth, will bring some modicum of relief to the taxpayers and will also allow the 82 young men and women who are the front-line soldiers in our battle against crime to keep doing the outstanding work they do.

Any negative comments made by the Business Administrator, or anyone else, against the members of our uniform services is nothing more than editorial comment and personal opinion, and certainly is not reflective of the philosophy of this administration or this City Council. The unfortunate disparaging comments could not have come at a worse time, when the police union and the city are working in good faith. We hope that this does not setback the progress we’ve made through long, hard negotiations and compromise on both sides.

Photo: Steve Gold