Several Republican legislators are demanding accountability for longstanding deficiencies at New Jersey’s veterans homes, where hundreds died during the pandemic. (New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs photo by Mark C. Olsen)
Several Republican lawmakers have renewed their demands for legislative hearings and accountability for the state’s bungled pandemic response, a day after the Murphy administration agreed to federal oversight of two state-run veterans homes where deficient care left 200 dead.
Assemblyman Brian Bergen and Sen. Joseph Pennacchio, who represent Morris County, welcomed the proposed consent decree announced Wednesday but complained that it came after years of state officials publicly downplaying mismanagement that contributed to 16,000 deaths in long-term facilities statewide.
Gov. Phil Murphy and Col. Yvonne Mays, acting commissioner of the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, gave the news a positive spin Wednesday, characterizing the coming oversight as a “partnership” with a federal monitor and the feds’ concerns as “past differences with the Department of Justice.” Murphy and Mays also focused on “significant progress” made since federal authorities last fall declared care at veterans homes in Paramus and Menlo Park so bad it was unconstitutional.
Bergen called the administration’s response “delusional,” and Pennacchio said it enables officials to shirk their responsibility to ensure the state handles the next pandemic better.
Sen. Joseph Pennacchio (Daniella Heminghaus for New Jersey Monitor)
“The whole messaging, from the very beginning, has been little less than truthful,” Pennacchio said. “This is not going to be the last crisis that we’re going to face. In the future, when these things happen, I don’t know if we’re ready or not, because the state is still slapping themselves on the back, naming buildings after the former commissioner of health.”
Bergen is a combat veteran, West Point graduate, and Apache helicopter pilot who served eight years in the military, including a year in Iraq. He pointed to recent rosy announcements and budget testimony from state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs officials, including that the Paramus veterans home got a five-star rating from a federal assessor.
“How the f*** do you have a five-star rating and a consent decree?” Bergen said. “There’s just such a lack of accountability, and they look at everything with these rose-colored glasses and just refuse to admit mistakes … As a veteran myself, it infuriates me that our veterans are not being one million percent taken care of, and then it gets me even more mad beyond the boiling point when people are trying to pretend like everything’s OK.”
A law firm commissioned to examine the state’s pandemic response issued a scathing, lengthy report in March saying the state and nation “collectively failed” and that New Jersey remains unprepared for the next emergency.
In a separate investigation, the Justice Department’s civil rights division, along with the U.S. Attorney’s Office of New Jersey, found two of three state-run veterans homes failed at ensuring basic medical care and infection controls for the more than 300 residents there who need 24-hour skilled nursing care.
Federal authorities filed a civil complaint in federal court Wednesday because the state hadn’t done enough to correct the homes’ longstanding deficiencies, the complaint says. The proposed consent decree, which needs a judge’s sign-off, is meant to compel reforms.
Assemblyman Brian Bergen (R-Morris) called for more accountability for pandemic failures at state-run veterans homes that left 200 dead. (Hal Brown for New Jersey Monitor)
Bergen on Thursday called for new leadership at the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, blaming the veterans home problems on department leaders he characterized as “partisan hacks” afraid to irk the governor by asking for state funds or acknowledging problems.
“DMAVA, if they needed 20 more million dollars to pay people properly, to be fully staffed at all times, they should ask for it, A, and get it, B,” Bergen said. “The blame, in my opinion, falls squarely on the leadership of DMAVA. If you don’t have the intestinal fortitude to say what’s wrong and demand what you need to get the job done, then you should not be in leadership.”
Major General Lisa Hou, the department’s former commissioner, testified during budget talks last spring that the department replaced people in several leadership positions, including the director of veterans health care services, the chief executive officers at the Menlo Park and Paramus veterans homes, and the medical directors of all three veterans homes. Hou herself left in June for a job at the National Guard; she had been the department’s commissioner since October 2020.
Pennachio has long called for legislative hearings to fully dissect and learn from the state’s pandemic failures. He did so again Thursday.
“What’s so glaring to me is that the Legislature abdicated its responsibility. Why are we talking in 2024 about something that was done in 2020 and 2021, with no legislative oversight?” Pennacchio said. “With Bridgegate, they were swarming all over themselves and Republicans to hold hearings, and quite frankly, we agreed, let’s get a bipartisan, bicameral commission, let’s find out exactly what happened.”
He added: “We need to do this now, just like we did with Bridgegate, where nobody died. Sixteen thousand people did die here, and their loved ones deserve an answer.”
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