BRADLEY BEACH — John Barrett, the borough’s chief financial officer, resigned from his role amid a disagreement with Mayor Al Gubitosi, just two days after he presented the 2025 municipal budget at the April 15 council meeting in borough hall.
Barrett’s resignation from the position was delivered through an email, which copied over 15 borough employees, and cited a disagreement with Gubitosi over retro-pay calculations from a recently settled union contract as reasoning for his premature departure.
Gubitosi told The Coast Star, “Mr. Barrett did a great job as our CFO and he got us to a really good point in a matter of three months, getting us to a budget introduction. However, we did have some areas of disagreement that led to him resigning and I think that was mutually agreed upon.”
Barrett, of PM Consultants, was hired at the Jan. 7 borough council meeting in a temporary capacity until the end of the year, at a salary not to exceed $125,000, according to the resolution. Barrett also currently serves as the borough administrator in Spring Lake Heights.
When retained in January, according to Gubitosi, Barrett was tasked with closing out business items from the previous year, establishing a temporary budget and completing a 2025 budget, which he presented days before his resignation.
The April 15 borough council meeting was filled, wall to wall, with residents concerned about several outdoor dining permit applications for Bradley Beach restaurants, including D’Arcy’s Tavern. But over 50 attendees also heard Barrett’s presentation on the delayed 2023 audit report, 2024 annual financial statement and the 2025 municipal budget.
Barrett said of Gubitsoi during the budget presentation the day before his resignation, “I’ve worked with a lot of mayors. It’s always a positive when they have an accounting background and care about the community as much as he does, so as a CFO, it’s been a pleasure working with you, Mister Mayor.”
According to Gubitosi, the council is working to set a special meeting on Tuesday, April 29, to hire a new CFO, who has already been identified. Gubitosi did not reveal the name of the new CFO.
Barrett did not return calls from The Coast Star for further comment on the matter.
RESIGNATION EMAIL
Before his resignation, Barrett shared an email with over 15 borough employees from the police department, department of public works, construction department and other offices. A copy of the email was obtained by The Coast Star. The email has a number of attachments detailing salaries, payroll and importantly, retro-pay for employees falling under the Local Union 152, comparing calculations made by Gubitosi versus calculations made by Barrett and PM Consultants.
After two years of stalled negotiations with Local Union 152, whose membership includes town court, clerical, dispatch and public works staff members, in March, the borough and union representatives reached a pact that included, according to Gubitosi, full retro-pay for union employees.
According to the email, delivered at 12 a.m. on Thursday, April 17, Barrett viewed Gubitosi’s calculations of employee retro-pay as “erroneous” stating the mayor’s decision to move forward with paying borough employees based on those calculations “is not acceptable to me and my team.”
The retro-pay calculations between the two parties differ in each individual circumstance, in some cases resulting in a plus or minus difference of thousands of dollars of borough employee wages.
Effective 12:01 a.m., Barrett resigned from his position as CFO in the borough, according to the email. In the email, Barrett included a to-do list of tasks for the interim CFO, which included the submission of the introduced municipal budget to the Department of Community Affairs.
“I make this decision knowing that I have provided the top level of service to the governing body, the residents of the borough, and you directly. I have offered good counsel when some around you have offered contrary advice. It has become very unfortunate that you have taken this position on a retro payment to hard-working employees without the benefit of being an expert in this field,” Barrett wrote in the email.
In conclusion, Barrett addressed Gubitosi, and wrote, “You are a caring man who I truly believe has the best interest of the employees and the residents. Unfortunately pride can stand in the way of admitting you made errors financially, and you really should reconsider your emotional decision to move forward with sending payroll to Primepoint. That’s my last offer of good advice to you.”
Gubitosi told The Coast Star, “It was mutually agreed upon, and I’m OK with that… I would say the borough is 100% set to move on and we’re already moving quickly to replace the CFO, which is not an easy task.”
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