A furious New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie teed off on federal bureaucrats yesterday for allowing a clerical error on the state’s application to eliminate it from reaping as much as $400 million in education funds.
The state finished 11th in the hotly contested Race to the Top competition and, under a point-based evaluation system, just three points behind 10th-place Ohio — which was among the 10 winning states awarded a share of $3.4 billion in federal funding Tuesday.
Christie hit the roof when he learned that it was an error on one page of New Jersey’s 1,000-page application — which mistakenly provided data from 2008-09 rather than 2010-11 — that docked the state five points, keeping it out of the winner’s circle.
“You’re not going to grant the award to New Jersey because of a mistake, a clerical mistake, on one piece of paper?” fumed Christie.
“This is the stuff that makes people go nuts. This is the reason why people want to throw everybody the hell out of Congress. This is why people are angry at the president of the United States. Does anybody in Washington, DC, have a lick of common sense? Pick up the phone and ask us for the number.”
Christie also questioned why New Jersey didn’t get credit for correcting the error two weeks ago.
“Are you guys just down there checking boxes like mindless drones, or are you thinking?” he asked.
(Read More: NY Post)
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11 Responses
Christie , rules are rules and as a former federal prosecutor , you and your entire staff should know this. please tell us what happens when a police officer forgets to tell someone there rights . the case gets thrown out and the same thing here.
Good luck getting the money back from Ohio. They will claim that they did what they were supposed to, and were awarded it legally. It is not a question of the money disappearing. There is a limited budget, and the top 10 split it.
Maybe the Ohio people should recheck their report. If there’s just a 3 point error on theirs, they’d still be ahead of New Jersey!
Nu. That’s government buracracy for you. As a federal prosecutor and now a politician he should know this as well as anyone else.
Perhaps now he will begin to understand how the average citizen feels when they have to deal with government buracracy, at any level, especially at the state and local level where as governor he can affect some change.
The Governor certainly knows better, and is being disingeneous. This is like any other governmental grant or procurement deadline. You have to provide a firm and absolute deadline to create a firm level playing field. If NJ (my State) would get a pass on this, it would open the door to other Strates asking to make adjustments to their documents that they didn’t have trime to make prior to the deadline.
Governor Christie is soooo right. The people in government are mindless drones who can’t think for themselves, even after the mistake was corrected. I would not be suprised if this was a political move by Obama not to grant NJ the funding.
Message to Governor Chrisite: Please run for President to fix the mess done by liberals.
Perhaps if the clerk was better educated. . .
YonasonW, I partially agree with you. Bureaucracy doesn’t work unless it is the military, intelligence, and law enforcement. However, the Governor is trying to have it both ways. Until he is willing to privatize New Jersey Transit and stop trying to meet Trenton’s budget by trading carbon footprints, then he is becoming like another bureaucrat too.
He was probably doing more venting than anything else. However they did correct the error. Anyway, Ill bet SOMEONE doesnt have as good a job anymore.
#1 and #4 – If you read the entire transcript of Gov. Chris Christie’s responses to reporter’s questions, you will see the the governor is indeed correct.
Here is what he said before the abovementioned rant:
“when we went in for the personal interview, two weeks before the decision was made they raised the issue with us. Commissioner Schundler gave them the 08 &09 numbers two weeks before the decision was made.”
I am sure as a prosecutor he prosecuted individuals who submitted tax figures for the wrong years.
gavra (#9) – See this morning’s Star-Ledger –
The paper reviewed video tapes of the NJ presentation at the Department of Education – it turns out that Education Commissioner Shundler may not have been straight with the Governor – the Feds gave NJ several opportunities at the presentation to come up with the ’08 and ’09 numbers – but they stumbled, paused and ummed – and finally had to admit they didn’t have the numbers.
When asked about this, the Governor said he was relying on what he was told by Shundler . . and that he would be “…very disappointed…” if it turns out he was not told the truth. He wasn’t.