One would usually expect state officials to live in the state for which they work, but as California is learning, that is not always the case.
Two high-ranking California Department of Education officials have resigned after media outlets discovered that they did not actually live in California. The first official to resign lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but the second official resigned from Dallas, Texas, an ironic move given California’s ban on state travel to the Lone Star State.
Politico reported on the second resignation:
A second high-ranking California Department of Education official has resigned because she lives out of state.
Pamela Kadakia served as a CDE equity project manager but resides in Texas, based on public records and her LinkedIn profile. …
Kadakia’s LinkedIn profile shows she pursued her doctorate in education at Texas A&M University from 2019 to 2021. Prior to joining CDE, she taught for more than four years at Richland College in Dallas, Texas.
Records show Kadakia, 34, lives in the Dallas area, where she and her husband purchased a home in 2019. She appears to have worked in Texas since 2016, according to LinkedIn, but originally hails from California, graduating from Walnut High School in east Los Angeles County and earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Cal State Fullerton.
Kadakia’s resignation is more impactful because, as Politico reported, “Not only are California state employees generally prohibited from living out of state, but they are banned from traveling to Texas and 17 other states deemed to have discriminatory laws.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom made it a point to put Texas and other states on a state travel ban for various laws opposed by progressives, and for COVID-19 policies.
Less than two weeks ago, Politico discovered that Kadakia’s boss also lived nowhere near California despite being a California state official, in a work-from-home arrangement Hot Air’s Ed Morrisey called “technically illegal.” This is because not only was the official working outside the state, but also had a separate job in Philadelphia. Politico reported:
California’s first superintendent of equity lives in Philadelphia and has a separate job there, more than 2,500 miles away from the schools he advises as one of the highest paid officials in the state Department of Education, according to records and interviews.
Daniel Lee, a psychologist, life coach and self-help author, owns a Pennsylvania-based psychology firm and is the president of the New Jersey Psychological Association’s executive board. He has also been serving as a deputy superintendent for the California Department of Education since July 2020, a role dedicated to the success of children of color that was originally backed by a foundation grant but is now funded by state taxpayers.
Lee also owns a home in Philadelphia and voted in the city in November’s local elections. Politico also noted that State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond was instrumental in Lee’s hiring and had known Lee for more than 20 years. Lee was hired without initially publicly posting the position was available.