O'TOOLE CALLS FOR BUDGET COMMITTEE TO SUBPOENA OFFICIALS IN CHARGE OF PRESCHOOL FUNDING

WANTS TO HEAR FROM SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS AND DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION OFFICIALS
April 11, 2006
Assemblyman Kevin O'Toole/973-696-2323
Assembly Republican Office/609-292-5339

O'TOOLE CALLS FOR BUDGET COMMITTEE TO SUBPOENA OFFICIALS IN CHARGE OF PRESCHOOL FUNDING

WANTS TO HEAR FROM SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS AND DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION OFFICIALS

Assemblyman Kevin O'Toole today called on Assembly Budget Committee Chairman Lou Greenwald to hold hearings on the emerging preschool funding scandal and for the General Assembly to grant the committee subpoena power for those hearings.

O'Toole said he wants the committee to call officials from the Department of Education and administrators of certain preschool programs to answer questions regarding the rampant abuse of taxpayer dollars in those programs reported by The Record of Hackensack this weekend.

"Today my Democrat colleague Assemblywoman Pou asked the Budget Committee to look into these matters," said O'Toole, R-Essex, Passaic, and Bergen. "I agree with her and hope that our committee will have the opportunity to question not only the preschool administrators, but also the state officials in charge of oversight for these programs."

The Record published a report this weekend detailing numerous examples of waste and abuse of taxpayer dollars in New Jersey’s preschool program for low-income children.

The story cites a Jersey City preschool owner who charged state taxpayers for a Caribbean time share two years in a row and a Hoboken center that collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in state funds without telling New Jersey that the federal government had already paid for the same preschoolers.

Other examples of waste and abuse include payments for luxury car leases, Omaha steaks, shrimp, Godiva chocolates, wedding gifts, and motorcycle insurance. Even cat food purchases were buried in the books along with inflated rents, six-figure salaries and $900,000 in personal loans.

According to the story, one administrator, Regina Okafor, gave herself a $291,000 salary, and has defiantly kept state-funded computers, books and furniture since her contract expired.

"I want to hear directly from these school officials as to how they can justify this gross abuse of taxpayer dollars," O'Toole said. "And, just as importantly, I want to hear from the officials in the Department of Education responsible for oversight of this program to find out why nobody was minding the store while these taxpayer dollars were being misspent."

O'Toole said he will ask Chairman Greenwald to hold a hearing on the matter and would ask that the full Assembly take the extraordinary step of granting the committee subpoena power in calling the appropriate officials to testify under oath at that hearing.

Earlier today Assembly Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nellie Pou urged the Budget Committee to conduct and in-depth review of the matter.

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