The Star-Ledger Editorial Board first published this at nj.com.

The head of New Jersey’s largest teachers’ union is making noises about running for governor in 2025, testing the waters with a dark money group funding digital ads and a vow to fight for working class people.

But right at the starting gate, Sean Spiller needs to address the many legitimate concerns about his ethics,both as mayor of Montclair, and president of the New Jersey Education Association.

He could start by explaining why he is invoking the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to avoid answering charges that he took health benefits in Montclair that he was not entitled to, an allegation that is reportedly under criminal investigation. And why is he fighting the release of the transcript from that interview, which would tell voters exactly which questions he’s refusing to answer?

He needs to acknowledge his profound and obvious conflicts of interest as the mayor of a town, representing taxpayers, and the head of the teachers’ union, where his role is to seek generous pay and benefits. And he needs to be transparent about using teachers’ dues to amass his political fortune.

Start with his secrecy on accusations of shady dealings in Montclair.

Stealing health benefits? Spiller has been accused of pilfering tens of thousands of dollars in health benefits and other payments from the township that he wasn’t eligible for – all while receiving benefits and a six-figure salary from his union.

That’s according to a whistleblower lawsuit filed by the town’s former Chief Financial Officer. He and other town officials shouldn’t have had health benefits at all, the former CFO says, because only full timers are eligible.

They also took waiver payments for opting out of some benefits they weren’t eligible for in the first place, she says. And to top it off, they made the smallest employee health contributions – less than actual full-time workers like trash collectors – because it’s based on salary and they only get $10,000 stipends for their part time work.

Then, after the CFO challenged them on all this, Spiller and others retaliated against her, she says. The day after she sent an email to human resources saying they need to come off these benefits, Spiller had her removed from the finance committee, the CFO’s lawyer says, and started collecting a dossier on her, asking council members for their criticisms of her job performance.

Spiller has denied this, saying he was just asking about her work, not retaliating. As for taking the benefits, “he relied on the legal opinions that the township provided,” was all his lawyer would say.

Taking the Fifth: When deposed in this case,Spiller took the Fifth because of a parallel criminal investigation by the state Attorney General’s Office. Now he’s asking a judge to keep that deposition secret. Spiller doesn’t want the public to see all the questions he won’t answer: Like, if he was really spending at least 35 hours a week being mayor, as he certified under oath to get these benefits, how was he also working full time for the union, earning a whopping $360,000? Spiller’s lawyer told us “he denies any wrongdoing” and is trying to keep the transcript confidential “to avoid any misrepresentation” of his taking the Fifth, “out of an abundance of caution.” But he can’t hide this from constituents. He’s the mayor.

Illegal contract: After three Black firefighters accused their chief of rigging a promotional exam against them in favor of his own son and other preferred candidates in 2021, Mayor Spiller signed off on an illegal, no-bid contract awarded to the firm O’Toole Scrivo to investigate, the CFO says. Its founding partner, Kevin O’Toole, is a Republican who also donates to powerful Democrats whose support Spiller might need someday. The firm found no bias, contradicting the results of an internal investigation. That seems suspect, but Spiller wouldn’t discuss it with us.

This was the third time that he and other town officials hired a politically connected law firm in an effort to undo what their own internal investigators told them, the CFO’s attorney says – including that they were ineligible for health benefits. The CFO also cites another scandal she says Spiller and others refused to investigate: Firefighters were netting pension credits that they weren’t entitled to. Town officials referred this to county prosecutors, who referred it back to the town and urged them to do an administrative investigation. But the CFO says Spiller and others took no action.

Conflicts of interest: As mayor, Spiller has sway over the budget, andhe’s still refusing to acknowledge glaring conflicts of interest between that role and his job as NJEA president. When he was a councilman, he made no effort to recuse himself from the town body that approves the school budget until a judge was forced to remove him. And when he was elected mayor, voters stripped Spiller of his power to appoint school board members, who are now elected. Yet in both cases, Spiller told us he saw no conflict.

The NJEA: Spiller’s political war chest?

He appears just as blind to conflicts between his role as president of the New Jersey Education Association and his political ambitions. Ask yourself: Is it really in the best interest of teachers to use millions of their dues to advance his own political career, without their knowledge?

Spiller insists that the NJEA is an open book, run like a democracy: “Probably one of the most open organizations ever,” he told us.

But that’s an illusion. Yes, under state law, teachers must opt in to the NJEA’s traditional political spending group, which is fully transparent about the candidates it contributes to. But the NJEA also has another dark money group that teachers don’t have any choice about opting into: Garden State Forward, the union’s biggest political spender.

That Super PAC is funded by their dues too, yet completely opaque. It’s not listed on the NJEA’s website or the minutes of its delegate assembly, which approves these expenditures under a vague title like “Strategic Projects.” So most teachers have probably never heard of Garden State Forward.

Then things get even murkier. Guess who determines how much in teachers’ dues gets transferred from Garden State Forward to Spiller’s own dark money group, Protecting our Democracy, a likely platform for his gubernatorial run? It’s decided behind the scenes by three top executives – one of whom is Spiller himself. That’s a pretty big conflict of interest.

Now ask yourself: Why, when the traditional NJEA PAC is such a model of transparency, does everything go dark when it comes to these other political spending groups?

Perhaps it’s because they don’twant to draw attention to their bone-headed investments, like the$5 million in teachers’ dues they dropped on a MAGA Republican candidate in a hopeless fight against South Jersey Democrat Steve Sweeney in 2017. Or that millions more are likely going to fund Spiller’s own political career, says Michael Lilley of the Sunlight Policy Center.

“It’s like a democracy, except the voters — meaning the dues-paying teachers — don’t know what they’re voting for, don’t know it exists,” Lilley says of most NJEA political spending. “So how it is a democracy? You need transparency in a democracy.”

And we doubt most union members would approve of its overstuffed salaries, paid for with mandatory dues from middle class teachers. When you compare the NJEA to every other state and to its national affiliate, its top executives earn more, by far – most infamouslyEd Richardson, the NJEA’s executive director who’s since retired and was paid $2.5 million in salary and benefits in 2019.

Spiller’s salary isn’t in that league, but being accused of dipping into benefits he’s not eligible for while earning more than $360,000, then being secretive about it, isn’t a good look either. So far, he’s shown that until people step up and force him to answer questions or get rid of his conflicts of interest, he won’t. And at the NJEA, who is holding him accountable? We don’t know, because it’s all behind the scenes.

This raises questions, ultimately, about Spiller’s fitness as a potential governor. The people of New Jersey deserve transparency without a whiff of conflict – not another politician who operates in the dark.