Questionable Murphy News Today

The head of the states Schools Development Authority hired 38 new staff, many with personal connections to her family.

After a patronage scandal in 2019, Sameer Shah accused SDA executive Jane Kelly of a criminal act. Now hes apologized and said it was untrue.

New Jersey’s 31 SDA districts will fully reopen this school year in “deplorable conditions,” as the Education Law Center put it in legal filings.

View Comments The Schools Development Authority, responsible for billions of taxpayer dollars in New Jerseys poorest areas, will be restructured or moved under state control after a political patronage scandal led to mass firings and internal reforms as well as costly lawsuits in the fallout, Gov. Phil Murphy and legislative leaders announced Tuesday.  The unexpected announcement means it could be the second time the authority has been broken up and reconstituted in its two-decade existence....

The patronage scandal that engulfed the Schools Development Authority two years ago was not an isolated incident of failed leadership, a state watchdog agency has found, but the result of "years of inconsistent and questionable" management and policies that has led to wasteful property management, costly construction overruns and poor practices to weed out bad contractors.  If the authority does not enact further reforms, "the public cannot be confidently assured that the SDA can consistently ...