Posted on 03/03/2005 12:32:11 AM PST by Liz
For eight years, the top officials of an affluent Long Island school district systematically plundered taxpayer funds, illegally diverting at least $11.2 million to themselves, relatives and cronies for an array of goods and services, from a 65-cent bagel to a $1,812-a-night hotel suite to a mortgage on a luxury home in Florida, a new state audit says.
The scandal, in Roslyn, N.Y., is the most pervasive such school fraud in the country, say officials from the National School Boards Association. The year-old case has already had repercussions in districts throughout New York State, where school officials and bookkeepers say they are paying closer attention to budgets and accounts, and state auditors have stepped up their scrutiny.
The report, issued yesterday by the state comptroller, Alan G. Hevesi, examines the district's records from 1996 to 2004, and it reveals far deeper and wider corruption than previously disclosed. It found losses of $3 million more than was estimated last spring, when the first allegations became public. It also documents and analyzes unauthorized spending and account manipulation well beyond what school officials and the district attorney had previously detailed.
Besides using district funds to cover $1.1 million in cash withdrawals on personal credit cards, district officials shopped extravagantly at taxpayers' expense, the records show. The purchases included $18,605 for artwork from Galerie Lassen on Maui in Hawaii, $14,033 for pet supplies, $19.95 for vitamins, $81,637 to repay a college loan, $3.05 for a latte and $4,045 to a company for such merchandise as a manicure and pedicure kit, a Sony shower radio and an Aquabot Ultra Pool Cleaner with remote control.
The losses went undetected for so long, officials have speculated, because of Roslyn residents' pride in the district's stellar academic achievements. The district, on Long Island's North Shore, has 3,300 students and a 95 percent graduation rate, and a healthy share of its graduates go off to Ivy League colleges every year. The superintendent at the time, Frank A. Tassone, also had impressed and charmed the school board and parents.
Criminal investigations have already led to grand larceny indictments of Dr. Tassone and the district's former business manager and a former clerk, all of whom have pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors said they were reviewing the latest findings and considering further charges.
Dr. Tassone's lawyer, Ed Jenks, said he had not seen the audit but argued that many expenses were legitimate. "He was allowed one international trip a year," he said.
"It doesn't say in the contract whether he can take the Concorde or swim across the Atlantic."
The audit also said there were 26 additional beneficiaries, and it hinted that sharing in the money might have tempered some district employees' enthusiasm for blowing the whistle. The auditors cautioned, however, that at least some of the beneficiaries might have been innocent recipients of gifts.
Those gifts were at the expense of taxpayers; the property tax for homeowners in Roslyn averages $9,700 a year. In four years, the district's tax levy rose by half, from $46 million in 2000 to $69 million in 2004.
"Taxpayers are furious, and they have a right to be furious," Mr. Hevesi said at a news conference in Garden City, N.Y., hours before making an unusual presentation of the audit to residents at the high school last night.
"We're going to clean this up," he said. "We're going to put the systems in to make sure this never happens again."
One indignant parent who turned out for Mr. Hevesi's briefing said she wanted everyone involved to be punished.
"The degree of the embezzlement is so massive, the scope and magnitude of this is horrific," said the parent, Jeannette Elsner, one of about 200 residents at the 7:30 p.m. meeting. "It sickens me."
The audit concluded that Dr. Tassone took a total of $2.4 million, and his former assistant superintendent for business, Pamela Gluckin, was responsible for $4.6 million in unauthorized spending. Ms. Gluckin's lawyer did not return a call seeking comment.
Continued here: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/03/nyregion/03roslyn.html?8br
Of course not. A black college professor's kids will do better on the SAT than your random white trailer park kid. Why is that?
Frank Tassone was my English teacher in high school in 1979. A very mild-mannered person, about as unlikely a guy to be involved with something like this as possible. My old buddies and I are still scratching our heads over the unlikeliness of it all. The worst we ever said about him was that he was "light in the loafers", if you get my drift.
Goes to show you how unions, bureaucratic privelege and lack of oversight can tranform even a milquetoast English teacher into a crime boss.
Oh gee, the Times left out the gay angle. I remember when this story first came to light one of the recipients of Tassone's largesse (really, the largesse of the duped taxpayers of Roslyn) was his live-in companion, a man who ran a word-processing business out of their shared apartment.
Wrong...you must have missed the report on the wealthy blacks in Shaker Heights, Ohio, whose children score pitifully on the SATs. Wealth does not automatically translate into high SATs.
Are the superintendants of this District supposed to absorb great insight from foreign socialist countries in order to better perform their jobs in Long Island? If so, it didn't work too well with this guy, did it?
Or maybe it did.
Apparantly, free foreign travel now comes along with being a minor (in the great scheme of things) high school bureaucrat. This is almost as good a sinecure as being a minor functionary with the UN.
Some of the Supreme Court justices are now dipping their toes into international waters to apply foreign (socialist) law to our judicial system in contravention to our Constitution.
That's all we need now, folks, is the leftist scholastic systems of socialist countries imported into our high schools by globe-trotting high screwl supers.
Chain these bozos to their desks in our own country and make them push their pencils till they figure out a way to run their districts without bankrupting their taxpayers.
Leni
But, people expect results for their bucks and with an open town meeting form of government the pols can't hide, there is no layer between them and the voters, in the last election the turn out was 95%.
Quotas are hideous, made all the more so because the intentions were good. But good intentions, roads paved, etc. etc.
However, I refuse to look at the SATs as a black and white issue. It's a money issue. Take your typical bright kid growing up in your typical suburb and going to the typical high school. The kid doesn't stand a chance against kids who have been prepped for SATs for two years in school programs, gets private tutors on weekends and takes the two week course during the summer.
And yes, believe it about the tutors. Now, at least in new york, there's a new wrinkle -- college coaches -- who help fill out application forms, review essays and provide (get this!) talking points for admission interviews. Obviously this is waaaay over the line for a high school guidance counselor, but many of these same guidance geeks moonlight at this work.
Well, it's reported that he has a condominium in Las Vegas brought by the school district, and he shares it with a homosexual friend (who also has a company that does business with the school district).
No check warrants - lists of payments awaiting approval by the district's internal claims auditor - were maintained. In fact, the audit found, the claims were barely reviewed by that auditor. The extent of the review by the internal auditor, an acquaintance of Dr. Tassone who received $6,200 in unexplained payments from the district, consisted of thumbing through and initialing the vouchers, the audit said.
Wonder what this guy's annual salary was ? Probably pretty good pay just to "initial" vouchers. (waving hand) Hey, I'll take that job.
(Ta-da!)
MARIO CUOMO!!
Now, stop me if I sound a little tin-foilish, but have you EVER heard of New York democrats being the least bit interested in "budget concerns?" Is it not more likely that they were concerned with avoiding arrest and prosecution?
Most pervasive known school fraud.
IMHO, there should be one school board for one high school (population approx. 1000-1200 students). Once you start getting boards of education and superintendents and such of larger districts, the concentration of power begins to become too great and the probability of corruption escalates exponentially. And for what? What can the city of Boston offer the students of Boston with a unified district that couldn't be done better, at less cost, and with less corruption than they can with dozens of smaller boards of eduction closer to the citizens?
Dr. Tassones annual salary (according to Newsday) was $230,000! From the same article - Long Lsland has 124 school districts. In the past 5 years, auditors have examined the books of just 14 districts. Roslyn was one that was not audited...........I am looking for the article that lists school districts, supposedly randomly chosen, to be audited. IIFC, it was a very small number and none were from our "super wealthy" districts.
Remember the Suprimes up here decided to equalize school spending, ALA Mass. We denutted them in the last election by amending the Constitution to limit them to Appelate Review but the Tax issue hasn't been worked out yet.
Thanks to some Voter fraud we have a commie Governor so it is going to take a while to work out.
I saw Dr. Tassone salary in the article. My question is about the salary paid to the "internal auditor, an acquaintance of Dr. Tassone".
"The extent of the review by the internal auditor, an acquaintance of Dr. Tassone who received $6,200 in unexplained payments from the district, consisted of thumbing through and initialing the vouchers, the audit said."
Implies he had a salaried job (how much?) and he received the $6200 fraudulently. Bet he made big bucks for doing virtually nothing.
In the past few years, our taxes have gone up in ridiculous amounts. They were high enough. I had gone to different school meetings and if you don't go along, they ignore you and your suggestions. No room for discussion. I always maintained a positive and friendly attitude regardless. I found it odd. I cannot go to these meetings any more because it just stressed me out too much.
I too, am very interested in what schools were audited and which ones are next. If you come across the audit info, if you could, Freepmail me. I'll do the same if you like.
I understand they all resigned....and at least one Bd member who got an unauthorized $16,000 is being investigated.
Schools send home elaborate student supply lists and, to add insult to injury, insist that kids dump the supplies that they paid for into a communal box. How's that for socialism?
I bet this district bilks kids for supplies too. In fact, I know it does. One woman complained on air that the school district gives these kids nothing in the way of school supplies -- not even a pencil.
How can they afford to? Why, why....there isn't enough money!
Public education is a racket
Can't even buy a snow plow unless the townspeople approve. Up there in New England is where democracy in it's pure form is still practiced.
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