Audits Reveal 25% of Abbott Money Down Drain

It's as though you could almost see this coming. 25% of money spent in Abbott districts went into the black hole of New Jersey politics and bureaucracy. That amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars every year - money that we'll never get back.

New audits of New Jersey's most troubled school systems question more than $83 million in spending by the heavily state-subsidized districts -- from excessive travel expenses and legal fees to Christmas parties and food.

While 71 percent of all purchase orders examined were found to be "reasonable," the auditors concluded more than 25 cents of every dollar spent by the districts was unnecessary, excessive or lacking documentation.


The audits looked at all 31 of the state's neediest school districts -- known as "Abbott districts" -- which have been coming under increasing fiscal scrutiny in recent years. Overall, the Abbott districts -- serving about 275,000 students -- spent nearly $4 billion this school year, with about $3.1 billion funded by the state.

One school district, Pleasantville in Atlantic County, is the focus of an ongoing federal criminal investigation, while at least one other, Asbury Park, is being probed by the state Attorney General's Office, officials confirmed.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, and education spending is sending money to districts but the money isn't ending up in the classrooms where it belongs. Wasteful and bloated bureaucracies are to blame, and throwing still more money at the problem, which is precisely the approach chosen by Democrat governor Jon Corzine, isn't going to solve the problem either. It just means even more opportunities for skimming state aid for items of dubious worth.

Meanwhile, Democrats in the state legislature are concocting yet another tax and spend solution for a problem that doesn't exist. They want to impose a bottle tax of 10 cents on most bottles and cans to spur recycling. Crazy doesn't begin to cover this since many municipalities in the state already have mandatory curbside recycling programs that take bottles and cans. They're simply hoping to collect still more money from taxpayers who aren't diligent about returns, and use that money to fund whatever whim comes to mind, to say nothing of the increased costs for the businesses that have to operate recycling collection centers on their premises.

So, you've got education funding that's not exactly funding education and you've got a legislature looking to push a new fee that will hit up New Jersey consumers every time they buy a bottle or can at the store unless they remember to redeem those bottles or cans.

It certainly looks like New Jersey's priorities remain unchanged - how to reduce the size of businesses and the number of residents living in New Jersey.