With lawmakers poised to consider
a $2.5 billion infusion of new funds into New Jersey's school
construction program, budget cuts have forced the Attorney General
to ax a special unit designed to keep crooked contractors out
of the program.
Attorney General Anne Milgram told
lawmakers yesterday that shifting responsibilities now handled
by the Unit of Fiscal Integrity in School Construction to the
State Police and other agencies will save about $1.5 million,
eliminating 16 staff positions.
She said the other agencies can
handle the unit's work without disruption to the school building
program, which was rocked by scandal three years ago.
"I think the critical question
is, 'Can we continue to do the mission?'" Milgram said after a
hearing on her department's budget before the Assembly Budget
Committee. "I think we can do it."
Assemblyman Joseph Malone (R-Burlington),
ranking Republican on the budget committee and an author of the
2000 legislation that set up the school building program, said
the move will further erode public confidence.
"I think that, once again, it's
the whole department not being held accountable," said Malone.
"Diluting the legal oversight -- it's just another nail in the
coffin of telling people we're going to efficiently and effectively
monitor the way they spend money."
The Integrity Unit was created
by the legislation that set up New Jersey's $8.6 billion public
school construction program. Lawmakers insisted on it as an attempt
to keep contractors with past records of criminal wrongdoing or
fraud out of the lucrative program.
Annual reports show the unit screens
more than 1,000 prospective school contractors, alerts officials
to potential problems with about 300 and denies certification
outright to about a half-dozen applicants each year.
Despite the unit's work, the construction
program was rocked by scandal in 2005 after a Star-Ledger review
found its first six schools cost, on average, 45 percent more
than similar schools built by local school districts.
State audits showed millions of
dollars in funding had been wasted on questionable professional
fees, unnecessary land acquisition and other misspending. In 2005,
after an overhaul of the construction program's management, officials
suspended work on more than 200 school projects, leaving many
communities with blocks of land bought and cleared for schools
the state had no money to build.
The program was set up in response
to a state Supreme Court order to rebuild or replace hundreds
of decrepit school buildings in poor cities. Three years ago,
officials announced its $8.6 billion would run out with only 70
new schools built.
Advocates for residents of the
31 communities covered by the Supreme Court order asked the court
to order more funding. Earlier this year, Gov. Jon Corzine told
the court he would introduce legislation in February to borrow
another $2.5 billion for school construction. But with lawmakers
battling over a lean state budget, that bill has not yet been
proposed.
Jim Gardner, a spokesman for Corzine,
said the governor remains committed to securing the additional
funding. And he said Corzine "has the utmost confidence in the
Attorney General and her allocation of oversight duties to other
divisions within the Department of Law and Public Safety."