Murphy really doesn’t want to talk about shakeup at agency and resignation of top official who hired friends and family – By Matt Arco (NJ.com) / April 25 2019
Gov. Phil Murphy really doesn’t want to talk about it.
For the second day in a row, Murphy was asked about the resignation of Lizette Delgado-Polanco, a former top official in his administration who was under fire for hiring family and friends at the Schools Development Authority.
And again, the governor refused to talk about it.
“Please don’t take this the wrong way: I have literally nothing else to add,” Murphy said at a news conference in Trenton.
He stood by Delgado-Polanco for months as negative headlines cast a shadow over the agency. Murphy cited multiple ongoing investigations into her hiring practices as the reason he would reserve judgement.
Then, on Tuesday, before any of the investigations were made public, Delgado-Polanco submitted her resignation from the SDA and stepped down as vice chairwoman of the state Democratic Party.
Murphy swatted away questions about whether he’d asked for Delgado-Polanco’s resignation on Wednesday.
When a reporter asked Thursday if he thinks “it’s fair to the public, as well as the employees of the SDA, to not offer any insight or explanation about the resignation of the CEO,” Murphy responded: “I’m not sure I understand the premise of the question but Lizette Delgado resigned. We accept her resignation. We thank her for her service and we turn the page.”
About a month after Delgado-Polanco took the top job the agency, which has all but run out of funding, hired 33 new people. Most of those people had ties to Delgado-Polanco.
The combined salaries for the new hires topped more than $3.1 million, according to public records.
The hires were made as the SDA is running out of money.
It managed about $12 billion at one point to help build and maintain schools. Currently, it has $60 million, leaving nothing left for new construction or anything beyond emergency repairs at existing schools.
Fourteen of the new hires were brought on at salaries that top six figures and reach as high as $170,000. At least 10 of those top earners either worked with Delgado-Polanco in the past or at companies represented by unions Delgado-Polanco worked for, or had other close ties to her.
Murphy said he plans to name a new interim CEO in the coming days.
