Bosses at Newark Public Schools – where less than half of students read at grade level and even fewer are proficient in math – shelled out $566,000 on an “administrative gym” that averages just seven visitors per day, a staggering new audit revealed. 

New Jersey’s largest public school district is coming under intense scrutiny after the swanky exercise space was listed among a slew of questionable expenses found by State Auditor David Kaschak.

Kaschak also revealed that he referred “certain matters” uncovered during the audit to the state Attorney General’s office for criminal investigation.

Not only did the district dole out $300,000 on the gym’s construction without getting board approval or competitive bidding, administrators hired a full-time personal trainer to man the barely-used space – to the tune of $82,800 in the 2024-2025 academic year and $86,940 last school year, according a 36-page state audit. 

Still, only an average of seven names – all belonging to district administrators – were found scrawled on sign-in sheets over several months last year at the gym, which opened in the basement of the district’s leased headquarters building in November 2024, per the report. 

Other disturbing findings included the district spending $2.5 million spent on an unfinished school district museum and more than $700,000 on three separate “Senior Day” class trips, which had no documented educational purpose.

The audit also found that officials overstated student enrollment by 128 students in 2023 and again by 128 students in 2024 – resulting in almost $6,700,000 in excess state aid granted to the district. 

Newark has more than 41,000 students enrolled in 65 district schools.. There are 7,000 district employees.

During the audit period, the school district reportedly received an average of 81% of its general funding from the state. 

Superintendent Roger León, who makes $330,000 per year, has defended the district’s spending.

District officials insisted that all district employees have access to the facility and also said that taxpayers didn’t foot the bill — employees did through “wellness benefit funds” via the staff health program.

Another concerning finding, 10 active Newark employees had never completed criminal background checks – despite being hired 27 years earlier, in one case, according to the report.

The state took over Newark’s schools for 25 years following decades of mismanagement and poor performance. The local board of education was allowed to regain control in 2020.

After the report’s release last week, Newark school officials slammed the criminal referral as “gratuitous and irresponsible” in a statement, and said the report did not identify “any intentional wrongdoing or violation.”

After over a year of raising the alarm about alleged misconduct and questionable spending within the school district, state Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia (R-Franklin) said that the report’s release still does not solve the problems.

“This ‘I told you so’ doesn’t feel so good because kids, families, and taxpayers got hammered while apparently the board was dozing, elected officials deflected or buried their heads in the sand, and the superintendent ran the district like a drunk college kid on spring break with his parents’ credit card,” Fantasia said. 

Only one in three Newark students from grades 3 to 9 passed the English Language Arts standardized state test in the spring of 2025, while only 17.7% passed the math assessment, Chalkbeat reported at the time.