Yesterday I wrote that the nepotism and subsequent dysfunction within certain state departments (looking at you, Department of Education) is not a bug but a feature of the Murphy Administration. Now comes confirmation via USA Today, reprinted in the Star-Ledger, that Lizette Delgado-Polanco, the new CEO of the School Development Authority which manages facility maintenance and construction in Abbott districts, “fired dozens of qualified veteran state employees and replaced them with union pals and family members, many of them ill-equipped for jobs at an agency responsible for $11 billion [of your tax dollars] in school building projects.”
Sound familiar?
When I wrote about this yesterday, I didn’t have the names of the 11 people (I, trying to be conservative rounded it down to 10) hired by Delgado-Polanco, who used to be a union leader and vice-chairwoman of the Democratic State Committee. Now we have the names.
The Governor says he’s trying to “figure out what’s going on at the SDA.” The Ledger editorializes,
[These hirings] might seem justifiable, if you regard Delgado-Polanco as being a magnet for gifted people. The governor seems to think so: He hired Delgado-Polanco’s 25-year-old daughter as his director of public engagement — a job that pays $110,000 – and handed her husband a $95,000 gig in the Department of Education.
That sounds like patronage to the rest of us, but if the governor sees something more high-minded, maybe he fill us in.
But we’d prefer to see the Legislature to step in and “figure out” what’s happening at an agency with a history of corruption, because Murphy’s point person is taking it to Jersey-grade depths.
Senate President Steve Sweeney is so irate that he proposed a bill to abolish the SDA entirely. Now if only someone would pay attention to the same issues in the Department of Education besides your humble blogger. We live in hope.
Here’s the list.
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