Christie Forms Task Force To Examine School Funding Issues, Including Fraud
By John Ostapkovich
TRENTON, NJ (CBS) - Governor Christie has appointed a panel to look into how public school students qualify for aid as "at-risk" because there's question about who gets the designation now.
The Governor has given the panel four months to look at a broad range of education funding issues, not limited to the at-risk designation. But he says a key component of aid, enrollment in the free or reduced price school lunch program has been fraught with fraud.
Asked whether that revelation alone endangers federal funding, the Governor pressed on. "You don't want funding determined of taxpayer dollars based upon fraudulent numbers, so with the state auditor already telling us that 37% of the enrollment in the school lunch program is fraudulent, it would be wrong for us to sit by and do nothing."
The task force will also look at the wide disparity in property valuations that leave some school districts perpetually poor.
