Cleaning house to install family, associates: Questionable Murphy admin hires continue

Gov. Phil Murphy put the vice chairwoman of the Democratic State Committee in charge of an agency responsible for nearly $11 billion in school building projects in the state's poorest areas, an agency that was created after a mismanagement scandal.

Lizette Delgado-Polanco became chief executive officer of the Schools Development Authority in August. From then until the first week of February, the authority hired 38 people whose salaries totaled $3.3 million, according to a payroll list obtained by NorthJersey.com and the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey.

Some of them came into their new jobs earning higher salaries than their predecessors did. Others filled jobs that hadn't existed before. And many appear to have personal connections to Delgado-Polanco or her family.

The Schools Development Authority is at the center of questions about Murphy's hiring practices since the resignation of former chief of staff Al Alvarez amid an accusation he sexually assaulted a woman during the Murphy campaign. While lawmakers have spent two months investigating Alvarez's hiring, they have barely touched on the restructuring at the authority in which he was involved before he left.

Current and former employees said they view the restructuring as a front for patronage and fear that what they call the relative inexperience of many new hires could put the authority on a path leading to familiar troubles. 

The authority disputes that and said the new employees are all "highly qualified" and "are experienced professionals with the skillset and decades of experience needed to succeed in their roles at the SDA." The authority did not provide job postings and job descriptions for the new hires. 

It is clear, though, that the restructuring has benefited those close to Delgado-Polanco and her family while veterans of the authority were fired. 

In all, 26 of the authority's employees, many of whom worked for both Republican and Democratic administrations, were "terminated" in the restructuring and replaced with some of Delgado-Polanco’s allies and associates — including a second cousin who had been accused in a previous public job of sexual harassment.

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Those employees came to an authority that had built a reputation for productivity and efficiency after a tumultuous beginning as the Schools Construction Corporation. Established in 2002 and created to spend about $6 billion upgrading schools in the state's 31 designated neediest communities, the corporation wasted millions of dollars and ran out of money before finishing half of its planned projects. 

Lawmakers abolished the corporation and reconstituted it as the Schools Development Authority, which now manages nearly $11 billion in construction projects. But it is out of funding for new schools, and this year the authority must secure new funding for the next decade. It also faces a potential threat: A bill pending in the Legislature seeks to abolish the authority and fold its duties into the Economic Development Authority. 

The authority said its employee reorganization was done with the funding re-authorization in mind and "to foster collaboration with the communities in which the SDA is building schools and more efficiently deliver on the SDA’s core mission." 

To that end, the authority hired employees with experience in business, communications, organizing, public and legislative affairs and community relations — some of them worked for Murphy's campaign and in his office. 

But many of them have connections to Delgado-Polanco or her family. 

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Besides the cousin accused of sexual harassment, the new hires included the mother of Delgado-Polanco’s grandchild, 10 former employees who either worked for or were represented by the unions Delgado-Polanco previously worked for, and at least one friend of her daughter's, according to the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey analysis of public records and social media.

Delgado-Polanco, who remains the vice president of the state party, is a longtime Democrat who led the Service Employees International Union New Jersey State Council and was political director of the Northeast Regional Council of Carpenters. Unions were a crucial bloc of support for Murphy's election in 2017. 

Delgado-Polanco, 51, signed off on all new hires, but the authority said that "all personnel decisions regarding new hires and terminations were made with the assistance and input of the chief operating officer, office of the chief of staff, the human resources department, counsel’s office and SDA vice presidents." 

As these new employees were brought on, Murphy faced intensifying scrutiny of his hiring practices — in large part due to the mysterious hiring of Alvarez after he was accused of sexually assaulting Katie Brennan during Murphy’s campaign.

Alvarez benefited from the restructuring as well: His pay jumped 21 percent, from $140,000 a year to $170,000.

Coincidentally, it was Alvarez who fired the employees two weeks before he resigned. Six former employees described an email summoning them to a boardroom in the authority's Trenton office to be fired by him. They were then escorted out of the building, they said. Another former employee was on vacation when the firings happened, and Alvarez called her, saying in a voicemail reviewed by the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey that it was "imperative that you give me a call" and that the authority was sending a package to her home. When she got back she found a letter from Alvarez informing her she was fired. 

An attorney for Alvarez did not respond to a message seeking comment, and no one answered the phone at the number listed for his home. 

To some of the employees who lost their jobs, the restructuring smacks of nepotism and patronage. But the connections are not confined to the Schools Development Authority, which is responsible for building new schools in the state’s 31 designated underserved districts.

Delgado-Polanco’s daughter, Brianna Earle, 25, was one of Phil Murphy’s first hires after he took office. She is paid $110,000 as Murphy’s director of public engagement and has worked in many roles in politics since 2011, according to her résumé. 

And Delgado-Polanco’s husband, former minor league baseball player and coach Enohel Polanco-Gonzalez, 44, was recently hired in the Education Department at an annual salary of $95,000, according to payroll records. He works there with Kellie LeDet, whose husband, Cory LeDet, a former shop steward at a car dealership, is paid $105,000 as a deputy director of small business, minority and women enterprise at the authority. 

It’s not uncommon for relatives to work in government, but with Delgado-Polanco’s $225,000 salary — one of the largest in the state — the three public workers in her family take home $430,000 a year in taxpayer money.  

That figure does not include the $110,000 salary Delgado-Polanco’s second cousin, Kenia Nunez-Acuna, was paid as a deputy director of grants. But she resigned three weeks weeks ago, after the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey began questioning the authority about a sexual harassment complaint against her in a previous public job.

The authority said no other relatives of Delgado-Polanco work there, but some of the people hired in the restructuring have close ties to the executive and could be considered family.

Laury-Ann Diaz, for example, is the mother of Delgado-Polanco’s grandchild. She worked as the operations director for the Democratic State Committee before being hired at the authority in October as deputy director of external affairs at an annual salary of $110,000. In November, she traveled to Italy with Delgado-Polanco and her family. 

One of Earle’s friends, Riya Arora, was hired in October as a “senior prequalification analyst” at a salary of $66,000. Before that job, Arora had worked as a financial services coordinator, according to her résumé.

There is no indication that Earle had a role in Arora's hiring, and an authority spokesman said Delgado-Polanco is not related to and does not have a personal relationship with her. 

“The thing that I’m worried about is the people who were brought in were totally, totally unqualified,” said Peter Orilia, who was an estimating coordinator before being laid off in September.

Orilia said he “left there with a heavy heart, actually grieving for what’s going to happen,” because hiring inexperienced people “may work in certain industries” but “it doesn’t work in schools.”

“If the right decision is not made, it’s going to cost money or it's going to cost lives,” Orilia said.  

Of all the employees who were fired, Sameer Shah was one of the most well-regarded, former employees said. He worked at the authority for 17 years, most recently as deputy director of contract management. 

Shah, 51, saved the authority many millions each year, he and former employees said, and had earned such a reputation for his negotiating skills that people in the contracting community would say that they "don’t want to be Sameered" when submitting a change order.

In his latest evaluation, which was reviewed by the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey, Shah's manager, Terry Pollin, wrote that "as a result of Sameer's vast construction knowledge and technical skills, tremendous preparation and skillful negotiations, SDA is able to avoid significantly overpaying for change order work." 

The new deputy director of contract management is Frank DiBartolo. He came to the authority from ABM, a janitorial services company represented by Delgado-Polanco's former union, the Service Employees International Union. At ABM, DiBartolo was a senior branch manager and his many responsibilities included handling "all new vendor set-up requests, contracts and invoicing," according to his résumé. 

"I was trying to be the best employee. This is what I got after 16½ years," Shah said in an interview.

He said he adhered to the principles of the authority and looked out for the best interests of schoolchildren and taxpayers. "For the first time after I was let go, I asked myself, really, did I do the right thing by trying to save money for the authority or trying to save money for the children of New Jersey?" Shah said. "Doing the right thing doesn't always get you to the place where everybody else thinks." 

Shah and others have written letters to the authority and Murphy's office seeking their jobs back. But others, like Orilia, would rather move on. 

"Even if I was offered the job back, how do you go work for a company that’s betrayed you?" he said.