CEO of NJ Schools Development Authority Resigns Amidst Scandals
Lizette Delgado-Polanco, the embattled chief executive of the Schools Development Authority, has submitted her resignation after weeks of controversy surrounding her leadership of an agency at a crossroads.
Her resignation comes a week before she was scheduled to testify to the Senate Budget Committee, where she was likely to face much tougher questioning than she did from lawmakers in the Assembly committee earlier this month. In that appearance, Delgado-Polanco remained defiant and insisted, as she had for weeks, that she had simply done what other CEOs do when they take charge.
Few people agreed with that. The new employees she hired included a cousin who had been accused of sexual harassment — and resigned — the mother of her grandchild, a friend of her daughter's and multiple people with whom she worked at unions. At least 10 of her hires did not have college degrees or qualifications listed in job descriptions, the Network found.
Her management of the authority prompted multiple investigations, led to calls for the authority to be abolished and drew demands from former employees for her to resign. Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, was one of many who expressed surprise last week that she had held on to her position for so long.
But as the vice chairwoman of the Democratic State Committee and a former union leader, Delgado-Polanco had ties to Gov. Phil Murphy's core constituencies.
Murphy's office did not immediately comment on her resignation.
Her resignation comes a week before she was scheduled to testify to the Senate Budget Committee, where she was likely to face much tougher questioning than she did from lawmakers in the Assembly committee earlier this month. In that appearance, Delgado-Polanco remained defiant and insisted, as she had for weeks, that she had simply done what other CEOs do when they take charge.
Few people agreed with that. The new employees she hired included a cousin who had been accused of sexual harassment — and resigned — the mother of her grandchild, a friend of her daughter's and multiple people with whom she worked at unions. At least 10 of her hires did not have college degrees or qualifications listed in job descriptions, the Network found.
Delgado-Polanco came to the authority in August with the charge of leading it to secure billions of dollars in new bonding power to continue its mission. The authority, which was created in the wake of a previous scandal, has run out of money for new projects but needs much more to build schools in the 31 so-called SDA districts around the state.
The authority's existing debt already costs taxpayers $1 billion a year.
The authority became the focus of negative attention shortly after Delgado-Polanco took command when her chief of staff, Al Alvarez, abruptly resigned over a sexual assault allegation from the Murphy campaign. Delgado-Polanco said she was not aware of the allegation when she was hired.
But the authority's fate was thrown into doubt once details of the restructuring she led became public. Sweeney renewed his call for the authority to be abolished and has proposed folding it into the Economic Development Authority. But that agency is also at the center of controversy over tax breaks, and board members have resisted Murphy's call for them to resign.
https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/watchdog/2019/04/23/lizette-delgado-polanco-resigns-nj-schools-development-authority/3552712002/