• Lizette Delgado-Polanco has resigned from the NJ Schools Development Authority after a series of damaging news articles and calls for her resignation.
• Her firing and hiring of dozens of employees, some with ties to her, were among actions that were publicly questioned.
• NJ Senate President Steve Sweeney was among those calling for Delgado-Polanco’s dismissal over “unjustified terminations” and “binge nepotism.”

Following a damaging series of stories by NorthJersey.com and subsequent calls for her resignation, Lizette Delgado-Polanco is leaving her job as chief executive officer of the state Schools Development Authority (SDA), InsiderNJ learned today.

She submitted her resignation letter this afternoon (see below).

Vice chair of the Democratic State Committee and formerly the political director of the Northeast Regional Council of Carpenters Union, Delgado-Polanco went to the SDA after Carpenters brass at the federal level of the labor organization muscled the carpenters union out of existence, apparently as payback to the secretary-treasurer who appeared to welcome an alliance with Governor Phil Murphy.

Delgado-Polanco landed at the Schools Development Authority (SDA).

There she fell under intensified scrutiny this year after her team fired about two dozen employees, and replaced them with three dozen others, including hires connected to the new SDA CEO.

The story got traction just as the state’s political chattering classes appeared to lose interest in the Katie Brennan-Al Alvarez case; or more precisely, the two cases seemed to reinforce hiring practices run amok in the Murphy Administration.

A joint legislative committee focusing on how Alvarez got his job at the SDA appeared ready to hone in more on how others obtained their positions at the SDA after Delgado-Polanco hired on as the new boss.

Those calling for Delgado Polanco’s dismissal included Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-3), who expressed alarm over the patronage scandal at the SDA. “You had everything to do with the unjustified terminations, which precipitated the binge nepotism,” former SDA staffer David Barie told Delgado-Polanco in an NJTV story by Brenda Flanagan.

The up-ticking budget season and ongoing rivalry in the party between that part of the establishment otherwise identified as the South Jersey Brain Trust affiliated with Sweeney, and the front office, accelerated internal designs to say goodbye to Delgado-Polanco sooner rather than wait for the teeth of a Democratic Party budget fight come late June.