Sometimes we think New Jersey is a poorly written sitcom.

But then we learn of something so outrageous, so over the top that we realize, the joke has always been on us.

The latest example of taxpayer abuse – and make no mistake, that is what it is – takes place in the Bayshore community of Keansburg in Monmouth County, which – hold onto your hats – is about to pay its superintendent of schools $740,926 as a farewell bonus when she retires next month.

That is on top of the six-figure pension she will also receive.

And did we mention that Keansburg is an Abbott school district, and that 81 cents out of every dollar the district spends comes from the taxpayers of the state of New Jersey?

Yes, those Abbott school districts – the ones that pay bus drivers 6 hours of overtime a month to charge their cell phones, that buy flat screen wall-mounted televisions, that audits found spend more than 25 cents out of every dollar on questionable expenditures – are at it again.

Keansburg Schools Superintendent Barbara Trzeszkowski will retire next month with the kind of golden parachute that would make an oil executive blush.  Her contract calls for her to receive $184,586 for 235.5 unused sick days and 20 vacation days, and another $556,290 in severance pay for a grand total of $740,926 – all paid for by tax dollars.

And that doesn’t include her annual pension of more than $115,000 – also paid for by tax dollars.

Funny thing, we thought that those hundreds of millions of dollars we have sent to the Abbott school districts were supposed to guarantee school children a thorough and efficient education.

Not give their school executives a thoroughly exorbitant send-off into their retirement years.

Trzeszkowski, by the way, is no stranger to taxpayer abuse. She had the gall to take a stretch limousine to a school board hearing in Atlantic City to ask for more state aid, according to the Star Ledger. She was forced to repay the district the $375 the trip cost.

Apparently, she never learned her lesson.

But here’s what is so outrageous about this.

The state of New Jersey never caught this flagrant abuse of tax dollars – even though we the taxpayers of New Jersey pay 81 percent of Keansburg’s school budget.

The state of New Jersey is such a lousy custodian of our tax dollars that it just sends the money off, and never takes a look at how it’s spent.

If they did, they would have flagged this outrageous contract back in 2003, when it was first signed.

They would have cried foul.  They would have ordered it be undone.

Instead, they were caught as flat-footed as everybody else.

None of them can look at us with a straight face and tell us ever again that they watch out over our tax dollars.

Because they don’t.

If they cared one iota about how our money was spent, they would have flagged this district the second they learned its superintendent took that limousine down to Atlantic City.

That act alone should have been a red-checkered flag that this was a district out of control.

But they did nothing.

Instead, Lucille Davy has the audacity to sit before a legislative panel and say that she can’t go back and recoup documented waste by the Abbotts, and every other school district in New Jersey, because the rules weren’t clear.

Yes, right and wrong is such a complicated subject.

Black and white is so hard to read.

Enough is enough.

If Jon Corzine hasn’t ordered a review of every superintendent’s contract by the end of the day, then he doesn’t deserve to be in office.

If he hasn’t signed an executive order demanding that all tax dollars that are wasted by school districts and any other government agency are immediately forfeited and must be repaid by a loss of state aid, then he’s not doing his job.

Don’t tell us how broke we are.  Don’t tell us how you have to raise our tolls, or our taxes, or our fees, because New Jersey doesn’t have enough money.

New Jersey has all the money it needs.

What it doesn’t have are government officials who care about how tax dollars are spent. 

What it doesn’t have is a government that respects the fact that every dollar it gets come from the pockets of average New Jerseyans, who are having a hard time making ends meet.

What it doesn’t have is a government that chooses its taxpayers over the bureaucracy.

Even David Sciarra, the attorney who has led the Abbott litigation, couldn’t defend Keansburg.

"The commissioner has the responsibility to step in and review it and, if it is inappropriate, take whatever action is necessary to change it or modify it to ensure it is reasonable," he said. "There's no justification for improper spending."

We agree.  But why is it that the first response to every crisis is that the state needs more money?

Now, of course, state officials are scrambling all over each other trying to act as though this abuse of tax dollars must! not!  be! tolerated!

Davy – she who wouldn’t go back and try to recoup wasted tax dollars –now wants a copy of the Keansburg contract.

"There is concern," said Davy’s spokeswoman, Kathryn Forsyth. "We are obtaining a copy of the settlement in question to review it to see what, if anything, can be done."

Here’s a thought: Why not monitor how the state’s tax dollars are spent, to stop this abuse before it starts?

Where was the state back in 2003, when this contract was first signed? Forget about 2003, where has the state been every day when it came to protecting us against taxpayer abuse?

It’s not like they haven’t had notice.

A few years ago, the State Commission of Investigation revealed how the generous packages that school superintendents across the state received.  As a result, the Legislature passed a series of reforms, including that superintendent contracts must be posted online.

That’s how we found out about Keansburg. Not because the Department of Education was doing its job – but because the contract was posted online, for everybody – except, apparently, state officials – to see.

Davy and her buddies should be hanging their heads in shame today.

We all know that Keansburg is not an isolated incident.  We all know that this abuse of tax dollars happens in rich districts and poor, at every layer of government.

This isn’t about the Abbott districts.  It’s about how everyone in government views more money as the solution to all problems.  They don’t care how the money is spent, as long as they get more of it. And, when they learn about abuse, they act outraged, but – as we learned again in Keansburg – they do little to stop it, let alone prevent it.

And that happens because government does not respect the money that comes from the taxpayer. 

Will Corzine stand up today for the taxpayer?  Will he punish those who misuse tax dollars?

Or will he stand by, make a few outraged statements, and then go back to his office so he can keep working on his next plan to raise the tolls on overtaxed New Jerseyans?

And tell us again how New Jersey needs even more of our tax dollars.