Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-West Deptford) bid to do away with the Schools Development Authority has taken on a new dimension in the wake of a report that found waste, mismanagement and lax oversight.
“I’ll put it to you this way: We’re going to talk to the governor about it because I’m not funding the SDA,” he said during a press gaggle Thursday. “I’m just not.”
The authority is tasked with building and maintaining schools in the state’s poorest districts, but a report released earlier this week by the State Commission of Investigation found “numerous shoddy school construction projects” and costly errors that the watchdog said left already struggling districts in the lurch.
The scandal wasn’t the first the authority has faced in recent years. In April 2019, then-SDA CEO Lizette Delgado-Polanco resigned from her post after The (Bergen) Record reported she culled longtime authority staff and replaced them with friends and family members who frequently lacked qualifications for their posts.
The authority has long been regarded as a patronage pit, and the SCI recommended the state build out the authority’s process for selected a CEO, noting the SDA board has served “as little more than a rubber stamp” in previous selections.
Sweeney doesn’t expect his stance on the SDA to be a sticking point in this year’s budget negotiations.
“They don’t have any money, and they got to come to us for money, and I don’t think the governor is ignoring either that report,” he said. “It wasn’t a good report, you realize. Nothing good’s happening over there for years. I’m in construction. There’s a better way to go about building schools.”
Sweeney is general vice president of the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers.
“You can’t make me, nor will I, put money into that organization anymore,” he said. “It needs adult supervision and it needs adult supervision now.”
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