Murphy Aides Enabled Mess at $12 Billion Authority, Report Says

(Bloomberg) -- New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy's administration gave “tacit approval” to mismanagement of one of the nation's biggest public-construction programs by a Democratic Party loyalist who replaced veteran staff with friends and family, according to a State Commission of Investigation report.

The Schools Development Authority, created in 2007 to replace a predecessor that had squandered hundreds of millions of dollars, may have to be disbanded, the 60-page report stated. Another agency may have to step in to restore taxpayers' faith in the authority, with debt costs of $1 billion annually and a need for billions of dollars more in borrowing reauthorization, investigators wrote.

“In its current form, the board has limited power, and as such, is unable to ensure that taxpayers' interests are being met and that actions
taken by management are mindful of that need,” the investigators wrote.

Murphy, at a Trenton news conference, said he hadn't read the report and declined to comment on it. He said Manuel Da Silva, the authority's current chief executive officer, was “doing an outstanding job.”

Schools Development Authority spokesperson Edye Maier's voice mailbox was full, and she didn't immediately respond to a text message.

‘Woefully Inexperienced'

The inquiry focused on Lizette Delgado-Polanco, who served nine months as a “woefully inexperienced CEO” of the state's $12 billion schools building authority, investigators found. Delgado-Polanco, who had served as deputy chairperson of the Democratic State Committee, lacked a college degree and had no experience overseeing such a large organization, the report said.

Amid criticism by some lawmakers about her leadership, Delgado-Polanco resigned in April 2019. The Murphy administration fired 30 employees -- 27 of them hired during her tenure, and many unqualified but brought aboard because of personal or political connections, investigators found.

Delgado-Polanco, in a statement included in the 60-page report, said she had done good work guided by career experience in government and trade unions. The inquiry “amounts to a ‘hit job' on me, undertaken as a means to smear me, and, from what I can gather, the governor and the governor's office regarding my appointment,” she said.

Investigators wrote that Murphy administration members told them they didn't authorize every Delgado-Polanco decision, “but their actions,
and in some cases, inaction, made it clear that she conducted her overall activities as CEO with the tacit approval of the governor's office.”

Murphy Aide

Pete Cammarano, a former Murphy chief of staff who interviewed Delgado-Polanco for the job and was a contact during her tenure, couldn't recall details of her hiring, they wrote.

Cammarano, in a statement appended to the report, wrote that it was “inflammatory and misleading” to assert that he wasn't fully forthcoming when he was following the advice of his attorney not to answer some questions. Investigators also took some information out of context, he said. “The testimony I provided was a complete and accurate recollection of facts as I recalled,” he wrote.

The investigative commission interviewed or had sworn statements from 57 individuals and analyzed tens of thousands of pages of documents, according to the analysis. It said it will issue a follow-up report on the schools authority's other operations.

“Despite having legislative hearings, an internal audit, and a pair of independent legal inquiries – all of which delved into aspects of Delgado-Polanco's activities as CEO – only part of the story has been told so far,” the investigators wrote.

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