The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has quietly approved extending a contract to former Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff’s consulting firm.

The Chertoff Group will receive more than $1.2 million to advise the agency on the hiring of a new security director and to help create the Port Authority’s first security department.

The company was originally hired for $300,000 in May 2011 to conduct a study. But that contract was extended in December and the amount was doubled without public discussion.

Port Authority spokesman Ron Marsico tells The Record newspaper last week’s extension was related to helping the Port Authority carry out the study’s recommendations.

Chertoff served as Homeland Security secretary under President George W. Bush and is a national security adviser to Mitt Romney.

(Source: NY Post)