New Jersey Schools Turning Away Hungry Children From Free Lunch Program

[Badger]

Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-Essex) said the lunch program is among the best anti-poverty efforts in the nation. "To see it subject to such abuse is infuriating," she said. "I am deeply disturbed by the findings, and fully expect the Department of Agriculture and school districts to implement the reform recommendations to ensure this program is used only by those who truly need it."

Sen. Michael Doherty (R-Warren) said the report reinforces the need to reform the state's school funding formula.

"Since the initial reports of fraud in Elizabeth were released two years ago, I have repeatedly called for a larger scale investigation to uncover the extent of school lunch program fraud in New Jersey," said Doherty. "It seemed likely that the abuses found in Elizabeth were occurring all over the place, which the comptroller's new report confirms."



The voices of reason.

Soeaking as probably the only one on this forum whose ever sent people to prison for defrauding public assistance benefits, I'm also outraged when fraud takes money away from the overwhelming majority of recipients who need such help, as well as taxpayers' dollars.

But neither I nor the fraud investigators I work with would use the existance of such fraud as an excuse to eliminate help to most in order to satisfy a Dickensian fantasy ideal.