By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
Waste in the public school system monopoly, Save Jerseyans… why is anyone still surprised? We live in a “free lunch” culture. Why wouldn’t our state’s biggest line item also produce the most bad behavior?
How bad? We found out today that an investigation conducted by Comptroller Matthew Boxer into 15 New Jersey school districts and how they’ve handled their school lunch programs has yielded referrals for more than 100 individual actors, including 83 public employees and 29 of their spouses and/or household members, to the state’s Division of Criminal Justice for prosecution.
Click here to read Boxer’s full report. And remember… that was 15 districts out of 590 statewide.
Senator Michael Doherty (R-23) seized on the comptroller report to advocate for school funding formula reform…
“Since the initial reports of fraud in Elizabeth were released two years ago, I have repeatedly called for a larger scale investigation to uncover the extent of school lunch program fraud in New Jersey,” said Sen. Doherty in a press release. “It seemed likely that the abuses found in Elizabeth were occurring all over the place, which the Comptroller’s new report confirms.”
Doherty’s referring to a major school lunch scandal in Elizabeth back in 2011 that resulted in national headlines and, more recently, criminal charges against Board of Education attorneys and a former board member.
Asw. Nancy Muñoz (R-21) echoed Doherty, expressing her belief that “[a]udits and investigations are all well and good but worthless if no corrective action is taken. I applaud the comptroller and his staff for not only identifying the widespread abuse of this program, but for holding those who allegedly cheated the program accountable for their actions.”
You know my take on all of this, Save Jerseyans. There’s no long-term solution to the corruption, waste, greed, and utter lack of results coming out of our public schools without a free market approach. Anything else is a band aid on a cancerous tumor. We can’t trust crooks to police other crooks, and good ‘ole Matt Boxer can’t be everywhere at once!
exactly. we need vouchers to allow parents the choice on what school is best for their children. not the government. Public education is a cartel and that is driving up the cost without any improvements in quality. It should also be a civil rights issue. Kids in inner cities with failing schools are condemned to attend these failing schools because their parents have no alternative.