December 2021

Money Management in California

If more voters in California knew what was going on in state government, things might change. Of course, the mainstream media does not highlight certain stories if they carry them at all in their news.

The California Department of Education is being questioned as to why it is paying a six figure Salary to a person who has been tasked with overseeing “equity” initiatives in state schools despite his residence in Philadelphia which just happens to be over 2,500 miles away.

Politico reports that Daniel Lee, described as a “psychologist, life coach and self-help author,” was hired last summer as California’s first Superintendent of Equity.  He is being paid $179,832 a year in spite of the fact that he “shows no prior experience in California or relationships with school districts in the state.”

Mr. Lee owns a Pennsylvania-based psychology firm and is the President of the New Jersey Psychological Association’s executive board. Politico notes that “he voted in Philadelphia as recently as November and owns a home there according to local records.”

The position was not posted publicly. Not surprisingly, the appointment has received many challenges. Nonetheless, Tony Thurmond, California Superintendent of Public Instruction, has known Mr. Lee for over two decades and defended the hiring by using COVID as an excuse, saying that his buddy was “somebody that I wanted to hire for a long time but he lived out of State.”

ISN’T POWER WONDERFUL?