E-Accountability OPINION
By Betsy Combier

In the future we hope the public will be able to understand what happened in Roslyn's School District and see that this corruption can, and does, happen throughout the nation. To further this campaign we need the help of the media, who, to this day, does not give education activists and advocates a chance. We are not published on the op-ed pages of our local and national newspapers, and some of us have been told by reporters "my hands are tied, my publisher will not 'allow' me to print anything about this...you...your efforts...etc." What 'they' don't understand is that, through the internet listservs, blogs, and email chat rooms, America is abuzz with information. A few minutes after a Principal/school administrator says or does something inappropriate to a child or parent, this parent can tell millions of other people who are members of listservs.

We need to encourage the gathering of accurate information on federal, state, and city funds used for school-based services and resources, and we need to protect whistleblowers who ask the right questions at the right time. Parents who find out about corruption are not protected, and they know this. We hope that the story of Ms Gluckin and all of her "friends" will be, in the future, the model for advocating reform in educational policy-making, budgetary transparency and personnel accountability not just at the administrative level but throughout school districts nationwide, including the building contractors, 'consultants', and panel members hired for outrageous sums.

It's time for change, and it's time for accountability and integrity in education.

$1M STUDY HAUL
By KIERAN CROWLEY, NY POST, July 7, 2004

July 7, 2004 -- The disgraced former head of the scandal-wracked Roslyn School District was busted yesterday for living it up at the expense of Long Island taxpayers - allegedly filching more than $1 million in plane tickets, tropical cruises, skin treatments and jewelry.
Ex-superintendent Frank Tassone, 57, was busted a month after similar charges were filed against Pamela Gluckin, a former assistant superintendent accused of ripping off more than $1 million from a school district with a reputation as one of the nation's brainiest.

Gluckin allegedly used district funds to make payments on several luxury homes and is free on $25,000 bail, while Tassone is similarly accused of cooking the books so he could live the high life.

Prosecutors said their investigation into the ever-widening scandal could bring down as many as 20 others, and officials said as much as $8 million may have vanished, some of it during Las Vegas and Caribbean spending sprees.

School officials said Tassone's roommate, Stephen Signorelli - with whom he lives on the Upper East Side - may have billed as much as $800,000 to the district through his desktop publishing company. Repeated attempts to reach Signorelli by telephone were unanswered. He has not been charged.

"This is a huge scandal," said Nassau County District Attorney Denis Dillon.

Neighborhood activists said Tassone and his alleged cohorts may have siphoned off as much as $15 million over the past few years, with millions going for luxury homes, cars, dry-cleaning bills, gourmet meals - and mountains of dog food for their pets.

Dillon said first-degree grand-larceny charges filed against Tassone covered a two-year period between 2000 and 2002 - and could be the tip of the iceberg. The former administrator faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted.

His lawyer, John Kase, said Tassone was innocent and called investigators "just way off base."

Investigators say incriminating records may have been shredded, including a paper trail showing $33,000 in dry-cleaning bills for Tassone alone. Prosecutors said Tassone and his crew of big spenders went on cruises, bought property in Las Vegas and the Caribbean, and even used school funds to pay off gambling debts.

Residents said they were furious that they had been conned.

"Disgusting," said Harbor Hill PTA member Amy Katz. "I don't know how these people sleep at night. I'm outraged that they'd steal money from kids."

Another Roslyn resident, who did not want to be identified, said she wanted Tassone to "fry."

"We're about ready for a public lynching," she said. "It's mind-boggling. They were even buying toilet paper and dog food with the school district's credit card. They went shopping, clear and simple. It's beyond chutzpah!"

Roslyn resident Cary Ratner was enraged.

"That money came out of my pocket," she said. "And now we've got these pigs slopping at the public trough. We're just not going to stand for it."


In Free-Spending Roslyn Schools, Missing Money Isn't Easy to Find
By KEVIN FLYNN

This article was reported by Kevin Flynn, Michelle O'Donnell and Stacy Albin and written by Mr. Flynn.

ROSLYN, N.Y. - Until this year, the worries that rippled through the affluent public school community here were largely enviable - such problems as which Ivy League colleges the high school seniors should consider.

In a district where 98 percent of the graduates go to college and only a fraction need financial aid, people did not fret much over school spending, even when the budget grew by nearly 40 percent over the past four years.

Their attention level soared several weeks ago when Pamela C. Gluckin, a senior administrator, was charged with stealing more than $1 million in school funds. Several days later, the superintendent, Frank A. Tassone, resigned after the school board discovered that a word processing company hired to do $800,000 worth of work was owned by his roommate.

Now, as school officials, state auditors and Nassau Country prosecutors pore through the district's bills, it has become apparent that not only were the district's financial safeguards woefully insufficient, but its spending on items like limousines and restaurants was often out of bounds.

Like those in school systems throughout the state, many of whom are watching Roslyn closely, the volunteer school board here is made up of busy people who placed their faith in a paid professional staff over which they had only limited day-to-day control. They also had internal auditors and external auditors, district treasurers and audit committees to help them watch the money. And as long as the college acceptances kept coming and the SAT scores stayed high, it appeared, from afar anyway, that taxpayers were getting exceptional value for their educational dollar.

But Ms. Gluckin, cloaked perhaps by the district's largess, was able to bypass the protections built into the system, according to the criminal charges, as she directed the district's finances from an office where she controlled both the machine that wrote new checks and the closet that stored the canceled ones. And many financial records are now missing, according to the district.

In recent days, the district has released records that detail how the system has spent its money since 1990, when Ms. Gluckin first began work as a bookkeeper. A review of those records and interviews with school officials and vendors indicate that, for a host of expenses, the tallies seemed to run high, the educational purpose was sometimes unclear and, in some cases, the listed vendors said they had never been paid what the system's books show.

Spending on limousines and car services topped $100,000 during the period. An additional $50,000 was paid to restaurants and more than $600,000 was spent in delicatessens and other specialty food stores.

Someone charged the district $21,000 to either lease or buy a BMW. Someone recorded that $736,000 had been paid to an education publishing company in Oklahoma, although the company says it has no record of doing business with the district. Someone took out a membership at an Equinox gym for $1,485 and reserved space with Manhattan Mini-Storage, far from Roslyn, at a cost of $3,800.

Board members say they are reviewing nearly $8 million in expenses, because the supporting documents do not exist or have disappeared. Among the missing records are the backup documents to support $33,000 that was paid to cover the superintendent's dry cleaning bills.

The records are in such disarray that it could take auditors some time to distinguish between the legitimate and questionable expenses, between the food delivered to the student cafeteria and that which might have ended up in an official's home. In some cases, the items are fairly routine, like the cars and gas credit cards that the district gave to its crucial staff members. But the Roslyn board says it never approved these items, and so the credit cards have been turned in. Two district supervisors who had the use of Jeeps have been told they can no longer drive them home at night.

"They were a big-spending district," said Andrew Miller, an accountant who served as the district's outside auditor for 14 years. Among the restaurants frequented in the past 13 years were Windows on the World at the World Trade Center, where $1,700 was spent, and Pearl East in Manhasset, which the district paid $13,000 to hold one or two staff parties each year, according to its owner, Cathy Huang.

Mr. Miller, who is the outside auditor for 56 school districts, said some districts charge employees to attend a staff party, whereas Roslyn often footed the bill. District officials, he said, also routinely sent flowers and baskets of fruit to families of people in town who had died. "It resembled corporate spending on public relations," he said. Mr. Miller's firm, Miller, Lilly & Pearce, was let go several weeks ago by the board, which says it should have been able to do more to spot the fraud, a contention he disputes.

Patricia Schissel, a board member for 19 years, said the board has long relied on its professional help, both from those on staff and outside consultants, to ensure that money was spent wisely. "We were always assured that things were corrected if there was anything minor that needed correction," she said.

In recent weeks, though, many people have lost patience with the board's explanations about what has befallen the district of 3,300 students. that has long been one of the highest achieving in the state. Several weeks ago, the school budget was voted down for the first time in more than two decades. Internet message boards and public meetings on the topic have been tense with accusations and rumors.

"I think they're banking on ignorance," Patti Werner, the parent of a high school senior, said of the board. "That's not an excuse. The community has to believe in them and the community doesn't."

Jill Studley, the president of the local parent-teacher association, said: "Everybody's so smart here and they're so educated. Look at what they pulled over our eyes."

Roslyn's predicament has resonated across Long Island and beyond. Other districts are reviewing their own practices and assuring school parents and taxpayers that their own safeguards would prevent what happened in Roslyn.

"The Roslyn situation is unique," said Dr. Ronald L. Friedman, the superintendent in Long Beach, also in Nassau County, "in that there appear to have been multiple larcenous people employed in high places who colluded to defeat the very tight safeguards with which we are all familiar and proud."

No one aside from Ms. Gluckin has been charged in the case, but the Nassau County district attorney's office has said that it is investigating the conduct of other school officials and members of Ms. Gluckin's family.

Prosecutors say Ms. Gluckin used the stolen school funds to help finance four homes, a Lexus and other luxury items. The district first discovered missing funds in 2002 but believed, based on an audit, according to board members, that only $250,000 had been taken, so they allowed Ms. Gluckin to resign, citing "personal and medical reasons" after she repaid the funds. In hindsight, board members acknowledge, the decision was a mistake.

More recently, the board has sued Ms. Gluckin in an attempt to recover additional money. In the suit, the district says it believes she funneled some of the money to herself by arranging for checks to be written to companies she had established.

One relative of Ms. Gluckin, a niece who had been an accounts payable clerk in her office for several years, was placed on administrative leave by the board earlier this month. The board president, William Costigan, said, "The board found that there were questionable payments made to her that needed to be investigated." In addition, the niece appears to have had the use of an E-ZPass paid for by the district to pay tolls on her daily commute, according to the acting superintendent, Charles Piemonte.

Since the furor over the missing money resurfaced several months ago, several vendors for the district have disputed the amounts carried for them on the district books. Michael Karopoulos, the owner of A Touch of Class Driving Services, said he did not charge the district anywhere near the $65,000 that is listed for his limousine and car service. He recalled that the district spent about $15,000 to ferry the high school's guidance director back and forth from New Jersey each day several years ago, when the director was recovering from an illness but was needed to manage the college admissions process. Aside from that, he said, he drove board officials and teachers to the airport, but he never came close to earning even $50,000 for those trips.

Long before the current scandal, Roslyn was known as a place that spared little expense to educate its children. Its per-pupil cost of $20,385 is one of the highest on Long Island, and Mr. Tassone had been one of the best-paid superintendents in the state, with a salary of $230,000. He had made only half that amount when he came to the district in 1992 with a goal, he said, to make the district "as cost-efficient as possible."

More recently, the district, in an effort to hold on to an administrator it viewed as multitalented, has at times augmented his salary with payments to offset the cost of his Manhattan rent, his Mercedes convertible and his treatment by a well-known diet doctor.

Going forward, district officials are embracing a more modest approach to spending, and the $78 million budget, to go before voters on July 13, represents just a 3 percent increase over last year. The district is also creating new safeguards, like the requirement that all checks carry two signatures.

The measures may be too late to appease some disgruntled residents, many of whom are urging that the entire school board be ousted. But even the most outspoken critics seem to agree that the changes cannot be allowed to undermine the excellence of the school system, which so long has been one of the community's signature achievements.

Lalaine Nassiri, the mother of three school-age girls, said the future concerns her. What programs might be eliminated, she asked last week as she ate a picnic lunch in a park with her two daughters. What new bit of distressing news waits around the corner?

"I'm afraid of what we don't know," Ms. Nassiri said.

BACKGROUND

Scandal jolts top Long Island district
Board found $8 million in suspicious spending
Cnn.com, Wednesday, June 16, 2004 Posted: 5:19 PM EDT (2119 GMT)

ROSLYN, New York (AP) -- This is an unlikely setting for a crisis in the public schools.

Roslyn High sends 95 percent of its graduates to college, its SAT scores are among the best in the nation, and it was cited in a recent Wall Street Journal story on the some of country's finest public schools. Foreign language is offered to youngsters beginning in kindergarten.

For more than two decades, voters in this well-to-do Long Island community less than 20 miles from Manhattan have faithfully supported a generous school budget, funding whatever programs administrators thought necessary to keep the district's 3,000 students at the head of the class.

Then came accusations this spring of theft and breathtaking avarice: school funds -- perhaps millions -- allegedly used to buy luxury homes, cars and other items, and tens of thousands of dollars in dry cleaning and gourmet food bills.

The scandal has led to the arrest of a former administrator and a voter revolt.

"Outraged," said longtime resident Carolyn Horowitz, who was in court when the one-time administrator was arraigned. "The word would be `outrage."'

The furor unfolded slowly. First there was an anonymous letter sent to the school board in February, alleging the former longtime administrator may have stolen much more than the $250,000 she repaid two years ago, when she was quietly permitted to retire. That led to an investigation by the district attorney's office and the indictment earlier this month of Pamela Gluckin, former assistant superintendent for business, on charges of stealing more than $1 million.

The school board now says it has found nearly $8 million in suspicious spending.

Luxurious living
Prosecutors say the money Gluckin took paid for mortgages on three homes, luxury automobiles and credit card debts.

"She stole from the programs of the children of the Roslyn School District and placed the school district into a great deal of turmoil," prosecutor Pete Mancuso said. "You're dealing with someone who stole in order to satisfy her own needs for luxury."

Her attorney said that she is innocent and that people will change their opinion of her once all the facts come out. Gluckin is free on $25,000 bail.

Gluckin's arrest, it turned out, was just the beginning.

The superintendent of schools, Frank Tassone, has announced his retirement. He had been suspended by the board after it was discovered that $800,000 was paid by the school district to a word processing company that shares his New York City mailing address. Tassone has not been charged and has refused to comment on the allegations.

In the wake of Gluckin's arrest, Newsday has reported new allegations almost daily of school money that may have been spent on perks. One report said $33,141 was paid to a dry cleaner used by Tassone; $30,605 went to a gourmet food market near where Gluckin once lived; $187,377 went to car dealerships and financing companies; and $551,569 went to four companies owned by Gluckin or her husband.

The district attorney's office is pressing ahead and more arrests are possible. The state comptroller is also auditing Roslyn's books.

The voters in Roslyn have responded. Last month they overwhelmingly rejected an $82 million budget -- the first time in 23 years that a spending plan was voted down. Officials conceded the theft allegations played a major role.

School board President William Costigan said that board members relied on the advice of an attorney and the district's independent auditor in deciding to allow Gluckin to retire quietly in 2002.

"Had the board known at the time ... that there was the remotest possibility that more district funds had been stolen, the board would have acted differently and would have pursued criminal charges at that time," he said.

David Ernst of the New York State School Boards Association said the scandal is a lesson for any school board member inclined to follow the lead of a dynamic superintendent.

"You can't be afraid to ask the hard questions," he warned.

Roslyn Schools Paid $56,000 to Diet Doctor of Its Chief
By MICHELLE O'DONNELL, NY TIMES, June 17, 2004

The Roslyn school district, which Nassau County prosecutors say has been victimized by financial mismanagement, fraud and theft, did get something for $56,645 it paid to Dr. Steven Lamm over a decade: a thinner superintendent.

According to district records, the district made regular payments to Dr. Lamm, a medical doctor who said he treated Frank A. Tassone, the superintendent until last week, who had weight problems. In 1995, Dr. Tassone, who has been described by those who knew him as once being portly, was featured in a newspaper story in which he said he had lost 40 pounds with the help of Dr. Lamm.

Dr. Tassone resigned last week as questions arose about what part he might have played in a widening financial scandal gripping the school district. School officials have said they are questioning a number of expenses that Dr. Tassone billed to the district, including $33,141 to a dry cleaner near his apartment on East 88th Street, on the Upper East Side. They are also looking into more than $800,000 in payments to a company owned by a man who appears to be a roommate of Dr. Tassone.

During his 12 years as superintendent, Dr. Tassone enjoyed a reputation as a successful administrator who continued the excellence of Roslyn's public schools, where 95 percent of high school graduates go to college. Now, though, his attentiveness to the financial dealings of the district has been called into question because of the alleged thefts by the district's chief financial officer. In recent weeks, Dr. Tassone's own spending has also come to be questioned.

From 1993 to as recently as March of this year, the district made payments ranging from $280 to $2,300 to Dr. Lamm, whose medical practice is called the Manhattan Vitality Center. Dr. Lamm has written three books on health, including one about Viagra, and has made frequent television appearances as a medical expert. He has appeared on "Oprah," the "Today" program, "Nightline," "Dateline" and other programs to talk about weight loss, sexual health and the effects of pharmaceuticals.

The district's records show that payments in previous years to Dr. Lamm had been below $5,000, but they ballooned during the 2001-02 school year, totaling $24,930.

Reached by phone yesterday, Dr. Lamm said that he had treated Dr. Tassone but that patient privacy laws prevented him from commenting further. "It's care,' he said. "I'm not allowed to do that."

A phone message left at Dr. Tassone's apartment was not answered, and his lawyer, John L. Kase, declined to comment.

Dr. Tassone's employment contract stated that the district would pay up to $5,000 a year in medical expenses above and beyond what his medical insurer covered. That angered some residents, who said they felt that much of the financial scandal resulted from lax financial oversight by the school board.

"It's unconscionable if it was another special benefit that was bestowed upon Tassone by this board without disclosing it," said Jeffrey Borowick, a Roslyn resident who has been calling for members of the school board to resign. "It's just another excess that we have to make sure never happens again."

In March, the board admitted that in October 2002 it had confronted Pamela C. Gluckin, the district's chief financial officer, who was suspected of stealing $250,000, and without publicly disclosing the inquiry or reporting it to the police, allowed her to repay the money and resign.

Ms. Gluckin has since been charged with grand larceny by the Nassau County district attorney. A niece of Ms. Gluckin, Debra Rigano, who once worked in the bookkeeping office, is under investigation.Ms. Gluckin has pleaded not guilty.

As Ms. Gluckin's direct supervisor, Dr. Tassone has come under scrutiny for a number of expenses. A company called WordPower, owned by Stephen Signorelli, who shares an apartment with Dr. Tassone, billed the district more than $800,000 in recent years.

Among $7.8 million in questionable expenses, school officials say that payments of $33,141 to a dry cleaner on the Upper East Side - Andre and Arlette - appear to have been made by Dr. Tassone. One school official said it appeared that Ms. Gluckin might have given Dr. Tassone checks to make the payments.

Stacy Albin contributed reporting for this article.

Former Roslyn Superintendent Tassone denied $200,000 severance pay

Play the video (06/10/04) ROSLYN - The Roslyn School Board announced Thursday that former superintendent Dr. Frank Tassone would not receive $200,000 in contractual severance pay pending an investigation by authorities. Tassone's resignation was accepted Thursday in the midst of a multi-million dollar financial scandal.

Part of the scandal involved a software company that was awarded approximately $800,000 in school contracts. After giving out the contracts, district officials learned that Tassone may be financially connected to the company. His suspension came after the school's former chief financial officer, Pamela Gluckin, was arrested on charges she embezzled more than $1 million in school funds.

During a heated school board meeting Thursday night, parents cheered when it was announced Tassone would not be receiving his severance package. Some parents in attendance say they feel betrayed by their school leaders. Others in the district say they want the entire board to resign, citing a lack of vigilance for not detecting the possible theft of funds.

Roslyn School Board President William Costigan says the district has safeguards in place to detect and prevent theft. However, Costigan also says someone can always find a way to steal money from a district if they are intent on doing so.

When asked whether the firings and suspensions would end with Tassone, Costigan could not give a definitive answer.

School Board in the Hot Seat Over Roslyn's Lost Funds
By MICHELLE O'DONNELL, NY TIMES, June 6, 2004

No fewer than five people stopped Judy Winters as she wheeled her cart through a Roslyn supermarket last week. Not for the usual neighborly chitchat, but to share their outrage at the widening scandal involving more than $1 million in missing funds from the Roslyn school district, and to voice support for Ms. Winters's fledgling effort to unseat school board members.

As Ms. Winters and hundreds of her neighbors see it, the board failed the community when it did not reveal an October 2002 discovery that an assistant superintendent, Pamela C. Gluckin, was suspected of stealing $250,000. The board also did not tell the police about the missing funds, but instead simply asked for repayment from Ms. Gluckin, who is accused of using the money to pay for mortgages on four homes, credit card expenses and Jet Skis.

"This board is not capable," said Ms. Winters, a Roslyn resident who has been active in the community. "It has acted disreputably. I have reached my limit on being taxed without having a say. It's taxation without representation."

Her anger is aggravated by property taxes that have risen 30 percent in two years and news that, in all, $7.8 million in district transactions are being reviewed in an investigation that now includes the superintendent, Dr. Frank A. Tassone.

Heaping scorn on the school board sounds all too familiar to David Ernst, a spokesman for the New York State School Board Association, which includes most of the state's 700 school boards as members.

"School boards tend to get a lot of blame when things go wrong, and not a lot of credit when things go right," Mr. Ernst said. "It's an oversight responsibility, and the actual implementation of that work is the responsibility of staff, who they hire. What is the board's responsibility and what is the staff's? It's going to be a question of judgment."

While the judgment of Roslyn board members has been widely criticized for concealing the theft - Mr. Ernst said he too was surprised by that - the scandal has also drawn attention to some problems boards face in the increasingly complex web of school administration.

Experts say school boards should not micromanage the day-to-day operations of a district, but should rely on the trained administrators who have been hired to make most of the decisions. In the process, however, some observers caution that the board members run the risk of becoming too detached from district operations if they rely too heavily on appointed administrators and midlevel managers to make all decisions.

The Roslyn scandal has members of school boards across the region talking about whether something similar could happen in their districts.

"It has certainly been a topic of conversation," said Joanne Sold, the president of the Ardsley school board in southern Westchester County, which discussed the matter behind closed doors.

The Cold Spring Harbor school board also met with administrators in a private session about the Roslyn scandal and emerged confident that no similar problems exist, said Jean Forchelli, a board member.

The complex method of school funding - financed by a mix of taxes, federal and state grants, and, increasingly, bonds - is one reason school boards have become less knowledgeable about how the schools are spending money.

"Everyone says they can account for every single penny, but I know for a fact that a board member can't," said Ms. Sold, of Ardsley. "In the review process, you look pretty seriously at line items. But am I going to do the same for $75 as for $150,000? No. If they say it's $75 for pencils, I'll believe it."

Board members, like Ms. Sold, are part-time elected officials who carve out time after their day jobs and on weekends to review district materials and attend meetings.

"Frankly, we think that's an asset," Mr. Ernst said. "They represent their community."

After the theft accusations became public, Roslyn residents derided the school board president, William Costigan, at one meeting for not being able to say who signs district checks. But Bruce S. Cooper, a professor of education administration at Fordham University, said board members do not have to know every detail of the district's operation, but should instead provide general oversight.

A high rate of turnover on school boards, coupled with a shrinking pool of qualified administrators, is another reason school districts can be vulnerable to mismanagement, Mr. Ernst said. On average, board members stay in office six years.

Almost half of the board members who responded to a 2001 statewide survey by the association reported spending about one to five hours each week on school district business. Only 15 percent said they spent 11 hours or more.

While the 2001 survey also showed that board members often have advanced degrees, becoming familiar with what is needed to operate a school district, from bond issues to the mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act, can be challenging for even the most educated person.

The state association provides training seminars for new school board members on budgets, management, education and labor law, Mr. Ernst said. (A recent budget seminar was ominously titled, "Recognize the Signs Before the Damage Is Done.") Sixteen states, including New Jersey, have required that training by law. New York is not one of those states.

But training alone cannot prevent all problems. Roslyn has long offered training opportunities to its board members. Mr. Costigan, the board president, said he attended a two-day training session in Albany shortly after being elected in 1992.

While Ms. Winters reviews options for removing the board, there are some who are not sure that is a good idea, even as anger continues to course through the community.

A week ago, at a party for elderly residents given by parents, a display of the school administration building was decorated with a generous number of toy rats.

"We do feel robbed," said senior class president Charles Niesenbaum, 18, who was there. "But the parents feel more robbed, since they're the ones who have been paying all the taxes. There's a lot of attitude of anger.'

But he said throwing out the board could harm the district in the short term by creating more instability, adding, "I think there should be more of a focus on looking forward."

Marek Fuchs contributed reporting for this article.

More on the theft of $1 million (original amount believed stolen) from News 12 Long Island:

Ex-Roslyn school official charged with stealing more than $1M

(06/01/04) HEMPSTEAD - Former Roslyn School District Assistant Superintendent Patricia Gluckin has been charged with grand larceny for allegedly stealing more than a million dollars in district funds.
An anonymous tip to police forced school officials to admit they never reported the incident. They also admitted they allowed Gluckin to pay back $250,000 and quietly retire two years ago.

Many parents believe the district's decision to keep quiet about the missing money was the reason voters soundly defeated the school budget on Super Tuesday.

Shattered Impressions of a School Superintendent
By MICHELLE O'DONNELL, NY TIMES, July 7, 2004
This article was reported by Michelle O'Donnell, Stacy Albin and Damien Cave and written by Ms. O'Donnell.

ROSLYN, N.Y., July 6 - The images people here remember of Dr. Frank A. Tassone Jr.'s first 11 years as school superintendent are those of a gifted professional dedicated to keeping their school system one of the best in the state.

They recall him in his office, at midnight, plodding through paperwork, or at the high school graduation, beaming as seniors left the stage, en route to Harvard and Johns Hopkins.

On Tuesday those memories were replaced by the image of Dr. Tassone, 57, in handcuffs being led away on charges that he stole more than $1 million over 27 months. Prosecutors said Dr. Tassone had used district funds to finance everything from furniture to Caribbean vacations.

"It's mind-boggling that a person in that position had the audacity to misuse funds that were meant for the children," said Mindy Finestone, a Roslyn resident. "And the amount of money is mind-boggling. We all feel like we have been taken, and we have."

Until several months ago, many people in this affluent village said, it would have been unthinkable to imagine Dr. Tassone in such a context. He was a progressive leader who spoke of social justice, made condoms available in the high school and built a community service program founded on the concept that the privileged class should give something back. He was a respected figure with an ample educational pedigree, the intellectual heft of a Dickens scholar and a born politician's touch at making people feel welcome.

The community's trust in Dr. Tassone was evident. It provided him with a $78 million school budget along with one of the largest superintendent's salaries in the state, a column in the local newspaper and a great deal of say over the lives of the community's children. But in the past year, his 12th as superintendent, Dr. Tassone quickly went from beloved to beleaguered, from trusted leader to suspected thief.

In the months leading up to the charges, some residents faulted him for failing to detect spending miscues by others, like lavish expenses in restaurants and for limousines. His own spending came under review when it was discovered that the district was paying for such personal expenses as a $33,000 tab for several years of dry cleaning.

Some of those expenses do not even figure in the criminal charges announced Tuesday, prosecutors said. But the cumulative weight of sloppy spending practices, and the school board's assessment that Dr. Tassone had failed to disclose that his roommate was a district vendor, ultimately forced his resignation last month. Since leaving office, Dr. Tassone has not offered a word of explanation for what occurred except to say, through his lawyer on Tuesday, that some of what the district attorney views as thefts he views as expenses to which he was entitled under his contract with the school board.

Dr. Tassone's fall from grace has unleashed a torrent of anger in Roslyn, where people feel betrayed both by individuals accused of defrauding them and by a system of checks and balances that was incapable of detecting thefts. In recent weeks, hundreds of residents have come to public meetings to scream at school officials. Yet Roslyn is not so different from other places across the state where volunteer school boards, limited in staff and time, rely on their instincts when deciding which well-dressed, articulate person with an impressive résumé to hire to run their schools.

By all accounts, Dr. Tassone cut such a figure when he arrived in Roslyn in 1992 to lead its five-school district. He had two master's degrees and a doctorate in education from Columbia, an unblemished track record as an administrator and a friendly, accessible manner.

" 'Call me Frank,' " Paul Burros, a Roslyn resident, recalled Dr. Tassone saying when he met him at a school district gathering four years ago. "It was such a nice way to greet someone - 'Call me Frank.' He said: 'My number is in the phone book. Why don't you come to my book club?' " For the next four years Mr. Burros did, and he credited Dr. Tassone with turning him into a reader during those weekly literary discussions.

Dr. Tassone had a lifelong fascination with Dickens, even heading a literary society dedicated to the writer who explored themes of maltreatment, particularly to children. Volumes of Dickens and Waugh, like "Hard Times" and "Decline and Fall," began filling the district office's bookcases, just as dozens of framed photos of Dr. Tassone with friends and colleagues soon filled the district's conference room.

Dr. Tassone had grown up in the Bronx, the son of educators, according to reports from colleagues. He had been married, but his wife died young, they said. At first, he taught English in Westchester County and on Long Island, then began working as an administrator, becoming superintendent in of Rye Neck, in Westchester. His reviews were good enough to bring him to Roslyn, long considered a plum assignment because of its students' high scores and the district's large budget.

In Roslyn, where many residents consider high property taxes a fair trade-off for top-flight schools, the superintendent is a very public figure, and Dr. Tassone embraced that role. Residents enjoyed the attention he brought the district and marveled at his deft touch. Many talk about how he started an adult education program for older residents, which in addition to its own virtues had the effect of building support for school spending among people who no longer had young children. He spoke around the country at educational conferences, although several Long Island superintendents said he did not spend much time at their association's events.

Dr. Tassone's pay grew with his stature. Originally hired for $117,500, he was earning $230,000 at the time of his resignation, and the board regularly added perks: $10,000 in car expenses, $5,000 for medical costs in addition to those covered under his insurance plan and a $30,000 annuity. As a result, few eyebrows were raised when Dr. Tassone drove to school in his Mercedes or stepped from the car in an expensive suit. Board members knew he had a time share in Cancún and a rental apartment on the Upper East Side, for which, officials later learned, the district paid the rent for a period of time. He also owns a house in the Bronx, which he rents out and a home in Henderson, Nev., near Las Vegas.

Several weeks ago, school officials say, they began to realize that Dr. Tassone had submitted expenses that went well beyond what was envisioned in his contract. He was using an E-ZPass to commute from Manhattan that was paid for by the district, according to the officials, and had submitted $56,000 in bills from a diet doctor who helped him lose weight.

Other disclosures followed. Board officials said they were concerned to learn that the district's internal auditor from 1992 to 2003 was the brother of a friend of Dr. Tassone's, although no wrongdoing has been alleged on the auditor's part. Board officials said they were also upset to find that one of its longtime vendors, a desktop publishing company called Word Power, which had been paid $800,000 over the past decade, was housed in Dr. Tassone's apartment. Board members said the owner, Stephen Signorelli, appeared to be Dr. Tassone's roommate for the past 20 years, yet Dr. Tassone never mentioned it. Dr. Tassone resigned shortly after details of Mr. Signorelli's contract became public. Mr. Signorelli did not reply to several phone messages.

School officials also began reviewing several hundred thousand dollars' worth of travel expenses for the past 10 years, including several trips to Las Vegas taken by Dr. Tassone and other district officials for educational conferences. The district's records show that Dr. Tassone made two of those trips. But the manager of a travel agency used by the district said her records reflect five more trips since 1999, although she said she is still reviewing whether Dr. Tassone or the district paid for them.

Sometime during those years, Dr. Tassone decided to buy a home in Nevada and did so last April, just as the uproar over school misspending in Roslyn was building. He is the co-owner of a $372,000 house in Henderson with Jason Daugherty, 32, a former University of Wyoming student, who has worked at a motorcycle dealership and as an exotic dancer at clubs and parties, according to reports from acquaintances and a former boss.

Board members said they were unaware of Dr. Tassone's connection to Mr. Daugherty, except that he had occasionally billed the district to send him express mail. Mr. Daugherty refused to be interviewed.

Auditors and investigators are still sorting through paperwork, much of which is reported missing.

"I don't know how these people slept at night," said Amy Katz, the co-president of the Harbor Hill parent teacher association. "How do they rationalize that the roofs in the schools are leaking and then take a trip to a conference that doesn't exist?"

Roslyn Schools Grounds Chief Quits Over Spending
NYSSCPA.org, July 23, 2004

ROSLYN, N.Y. -- The suspended supervisor of buildings and grounds for the Roslyn, N.Y. schools resigned Thursday, after charging the district for several questionable trips and spending school money on show tickets, golf and even a pedicure during his travels, records show, according to Newsday.

Thomas Galinski, suspended with pay earlier this month, stepped down from his $119,000-a-year job because of evidence that he billed the district for personal trips, officials said.

Newsday reported last month that Galinski, former superintendent Frank Tassone and Roslyn High School Principal Jayson Stoller charged the district for trips to a professional seminar in Atlantic City and two in Las Vegas between 1999 and 2001. The conference sponsors' records suggest the men did not attend.

Galinski has been on a paid suspension since July 6, the day Tassone was arrested on charges of first-degree grand larceny for allegedly stealing more than $1 million from the district by using school funds to pay for trips, furniture and gifts.

Galinski declined to comment Thursday to Newsday, but has said previously that all his travel expenses were legitimate.

-- NYSSCPA.org News Staff

NY TIMES, July 9, 2004:
MINEOLA: PROSECUTOR URGES MORE SCHOOL AUDITS

Two days after charging the former Roslyn schools superintendent with stealing $1 million from the district, the Nassau County district attorney, Denis Dillon, called on Gov. George E. Pataki and state legislators to increase funding to the state comptroller so that every school district can be audited by the state. Currently, state law requires school districts to submit an annual independent auditor's report to the comptroller and the State Education Department. Mr. Dillon has charged that the former superintendent, Frank A. Tassone Jr., was able to steal and conceal the theft by manipulating the district's accounting system, and said his office was still investigating the scope of the fraud. A spokesman for Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi said he would be willing to conduct the audits if provided the funds. A spokesman for Governor Pataki said that the governor agreed that additional fiscal oversight was needed but that no request for money had been made. Michelle O'Donnell (NYT)



CONTACT: Press Office
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July 14, 2004

Hevesi Announces Increased Oversight of Schools in Response to Long Island Financial Scandals

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New York State Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi today announced a program to increase oversight of schools statewide in response to the scandals at the Roslyn and William Floyd school districts, in cooperation with District Attorneys Denis Dillon and Thomas J. Spota, Nassau County Comptroller Howard Weitzman, the NYS School Boards Association (NYSSBA), the NYS Council of School Superintendents (NYSCOSS), the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) and the New York State Society for Certified Public Accounts (CPA's).

Hevesi was joined at a press conference in Nassau County by Nassau County District Attorney Denis Dillon, Nassau County Comptroller Howard Weitzman, Senator Michael Balboni (R-Mineola), Assembly Member Patricia Eddington (D-WFP-I/Medford), and representatives from the New York State Schools Boards Association, the New York State Council of School Superintendents, the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association and the New York State Association of School Business Officials.

"Most school district officials are honest, hard-working professionals and most schools are well managed. Their job is made more difficult by the few who steal," Hevesi said. "The initiative I'm announcing today will help ensure there is a culture of accountability and integrity in all of our schools. It can only work if everyone plays a part - local school boards and administrators, the State Education Department, independent auditors and my Office. School taxes are a major expense for New Yorkers. When they vote on their local school budget, they must have confidence that their school is well managed."

Hevesi announced a four-part school oversight initiative:

Ensure strong internal controls. Strong internal financial controls in every school district are the primary and most effective measure for preventing and catching fraud. The ultimate responsibility for instituting and monitoring such controls rests with the local school boards. To assist them, the State Comptroller's Office will work with the Nassau County Comptroller's Office to develop an educational program for Nassau school officials on internal controls and fraud detection. Comptroller Hevesi will provide this same program to local school officials throughout the state.

Improve the effectiveness of independent audits. The annual audits by outside CPA firms required by law for every school district should be a second level of deterrence. Going forward, OSC will randomly audit these audits to determine if they are conducted properly. OSC will also train local school board officials on how to get the most from these audits. In cooperation with State Education Department and the State Society of CPAs, the Office will promote a review of audit regulations and standards.
Increase state audits. Using current staff, Hevesi has ordered five immediate Long Island school audits. These audits will commence by August 1. The districts will be selected based on information provided by DAs, school officials and other sources. Hevesi today also asked the Governor and Legislature to provide funding to increase the number of school district audits conducted by his office.

Increase investigations. Hevesi ordered his recently-created Investigations Division to focus on school district activity and to utilize the relationships it has already created with law enforcement organizations to aid them in their investigations. The Division will be available to provide assistance to the Nassau and Suffolk District Attorneys in their investigations. Nassau County Comptroller Howard S. Weitzman said, "Some of the most egregious and shocking elements of the recent scandals in the Roslyn and William Floyd school districts might have been preventable by instituting some of the most basic internal financial controls. That's why State Comptroller Hevesi and I are joining forces to assist local school officials with some 'back-to-basics' training in financial control systems and fraud prevention."

Hevesi said, "Nassau County itself had historically suffered from poor internal financial controls, which led to its near financial collapse a few years ago. Since then, Nassau Comptroller Weitzman has been instrumental in ferreting out waste and fraud, and putting new financial control systems into place in Nassau. His experience in this area will be of great benefit to school districts as they work to prevent financial abuses in their own backyards."

State Education Commissioner Richard Mills said, "The public needs to feel confident that their taxes are being spent honestly and carefully. We have always worked closely with the Comptroller's Office and want to be helpful as we deal with this situation now."

Senator Michael Balboni (R-Mineola) said, "I am happy to join with Comptroller Hevesi to provide for more sunshine and accountability for school district budgets. More audits are needed and funding for them should be a priority in this year's State budget. I am also going to lobby for support for applying the Public Officers Law to school board members and superintendents. Last year, school districts on Long Island spent $7 billion. It's time we found the resources necessary to ensure that money is spent properly and the taxpayers' confidence is restored."

Assemblywoman Patricia Eddington (D/WFP/I-Medford) said, "It's revolting that someone would steal from the very students whose finances he was entrusted to look after. This can never happen again. And to ensure it won't, I'm supporting the Comptroller's plan to increase oversight and accountability so that we know that the resources to educate our children are being spent for what they were intended for - providing our children with the best education possible."

Nassau County District Attorney Denis Dillon said, "I welcome Comptroller Hevesi's commitment to increase his office's investigations of school district activity, and to work with local school districts and independent auditors to ensure effective internal controls and improve the effectiveness of independent audits. I am happy to join with the Comptroller in reiterating the call I made last week for the Governor and State Legislature to provide whatever funding is necessary to enable the Comptroller's office to conduct its own audits of school districts throughout New York State. As I said last week, parents and residents of every public school district in our state have a right to know that the dollars they are investing in their most precious resource - their children - are actually being used for the children's education."

New York State School Boards Association Executive Director Timothy G. Kremer said, "Even isolated incidents can erode the public trust that school boards work so hard to build. Through our advocacy for appropriate reforms and through workshops that NYSSBA has already conducted and will conduct, we will strengthen the governance role of school boards and reassure our communities that their public schools remain in good hands."

Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association President Jeannette Santos said, "Our Association, along with others in the education community, is prepared to take on the task of reviewing district financial practices and soliciting advice to help strengthen current controls. We welcome the offer of the State Comptroller's Office to assist us in this important endeavor.

New York State Council of School Superintendents Executive Director Tom Rogers said, "The State's school superintendents look forward to working with Comptroller Hevesi and other state officials to improve school district fiscal practices. The actions that the Comptroller is recommending today will help reassure the public that confidence in their schools' finances is justified. The state's school superintendents share the outrage felt by Long Island taxpayers. The alleged actions of a few individuals amount to a betrayal, not just of a community, but of the institution of public education and the profession of school district leader."

New York State Association of School Business Officials Executive Director George A. Perry said, "New York State ASBO understands and encourages a reasonable and appropriate response from policymakers and offers our experience and expertise to the Comptroller and others in developing responsible future actions."

New York State United Teachers Executive Vice President Alan B. Lubin said, "We're anxious to work with Comptroller Hevesi. The fraud committed in some school districts on Long Island has destroyed taxpayer confidence, disrupted schools and, worst of all, damaged the education of far too many children. This has to be stopped. Money meant for students should be spent for students."

New York State Society for CPA's Executive Director Lou Grumet said, "CPA's understand that school boards connect the will of the people to the education of the child. Every dollar raised through tax monies should be used for the education of our children. Our Society will work with the Comptroller on this initiative."

The School Oversight Initiative

Ensure strong internal controls
The best way to prevent and detect fraud is with strong internal controls. Internal controls are required by State law and by regulations of the State Commissioner of Education. These controls provide for separation of duties, proper authorization of payments and other mechanisms to ensure money is spent properly.

The Comptroller's Office will provide training to school board members and school officials that will focus on building stronger financial oversight and accountability. Training will be delivered at three levels:

An annual "school district leadership and accountability conference" focused on the importance of effective school governance, the fiscal and ethical responsibilities of school boards, and where they can go for assistance.
Teleconferences that target specific school district officials (e.g., board members, superintendents, business officials, etc.) and provide guidance on oversight issues.
Regional hands-on training workshops that focus on the specific, common sense practices of internal controls, fraud prevention, and proper management.
The training program would cost $350,000 annually and require about five additional staff. These costs will be absorbed by the Comptroller's Office within its current budget.

Improve the Effectiveness of Independent Audits
Every school district is currently required by Section 2116-a of the Education Law and by regulations of the State Commissioner of Education to hire an accounting firm to perform an independent audit every year. The purpose of these audits is to assure that school district financial statements are accurate.

The Office of the State Comptroller will spearhead an effort to make these audits more effective in detecting mismanagement and potential fraud.The Comptroller's Office will randomly audit the auditors to identify the strengths and weaknesses of these audits. It will use the findings of these audits to spark a discussion of audit standards with the State Education Department, the State Society of CPAs and with school board organizations.

The Comptroller's Office training program will teach school board members the purpose of these audits and show how to get the most out of them. School boards should use competition to select audit firms. School boards should have an audit committee or a board appointed advisory group including non-board members with financial or accounting expertise. Boards should be encouraged or required to either select a new auditing firm at least every five years or change the partner at the firm responsible for the audit.

Increase State Audits
The Comptroller's Office is immediately shifting staff to begin five new Long Island school audits. These audits will begin by August 1 and the districts will be selected based on information from District Attorneys, school officials and other sources.

Also today, Hevesi asked the Governor and Legislature to provide $5.4 million to hire 89 auditors to conduct 140 school district audits each year. That would permit the Comptroller to audit every school district once every five years. Click here for a copy of the request sent to Governor Pataki. Similar letters were sent to Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

Legislation introduced by Senator Michael Balboni would require that every school district be audited every three years by the State Comptroller. Implementing Senator Balboni's bill would cost about $8.6 million a year and require the State Comptroller to add 146 staff. State Senator Carl Marcellino has introduced similar legislation. Nassau District Attorney Denis Dillon has also suggested that the State Comptroller add staff to do more school audits.

"I thank Senators Michael Balboni and Carl Marcellino and Assembly members Pat Eddington, Tom DiNapoli and David Sidikman for their leadership on this issue. Given the State's current financial problems, I would recommend amending Sen. Balboni's bill to give my Office the resources to conduct an audit of every school district in the state over the next five years. That would cost about $5.4 million a year, which is not unreasonable to protect $26 billion in annual education spending. After the first five years, we should evaluate the findings and determine whether it is appropriate to continue at that level or make adjustments," Hevesi said.

"Our audits of school districts would focus on assessing the adequacy of internal controls and testing the propriety of transactions, especially in areas where internal controls are weak. Our audits would include procedures and tests that are intended to identify potentially inappropriate transactions, so that we can investigate those further," Hevesi said.

Increase Investigations
The Comptroller's Investigations Division, created in January of 2003, will increase its investigations of school districts. The Division has specific expertise in investigating public corruption and uncovering and documenting financial improprieties. The Division will work with the Comptroller's auditors and follow up on information they develop.

In addition, OSC will be able build on its already collaborative, ongoing partnerships with law enforcement agencies and prosecutorial offices. These working relationships, with local law enforcement agencies, State police, local Districts Attorney, the Attorney General and United State Attorney Offices have in other areas already proven to be a benefit in deterring, detecting and prosecuting public corruption.

Since the Division was created, 18 separate incidents of possible criminal conduct in municipal governments have been identified and referred for possible prosecution to legal entities, including the State Attorney General, several county District Attorneys, and federal agencies including the Internal Revenue Service, the General Services Administration, and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. To date, these referrals have resulted in several arrests and indictments and six individuals have pled guilty to charges.

"I am requesting funding to add five additional law enforcement professionals to my Investigations Division staff to expand our ability to investigate school districts in conjunction with the increased auditing," Hevesi said. This increase in investigators would cost about $310,000.

To begin his program immediately, Hevesi will redirect $1.2 million in existing resources in his Office for audits and training. He is requesting an additional $5.8 million to expand his auditing and investigations staffs.

"There is no single measure that by itself can guarantee an end to fraud in our schools. Only by having every level of government work together and by encouraging school employees and the public to report suspicious activities can we send the clear message that the few dishonest school district officials are likely to be caught and suffer the consequences," Hevesi said.

Albany Phone: (518) 474-4015 Fax:(518) 473-8940
NYC Phone: (212) 681-4825 Fax:(212) 681-4468
Internet: http://www.osc.state.ny.us
E-Mail:press@osc.state.ny.us

The Bad Superintendent
To the Harvard-obsessed parents of Roslyn, New York, Frank Tassone appeared to be the ideal schools chief. Then $8 million went missing, Tassone became a prime suspect, and the details of his secret double life began to emerge.
By Robert Kolker, NY Magazine September 27, 2004

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Tassone after his July 6 arrest.(Photo credit: Nassau County Police Dept.)
For the first time in his long, charmed career, Frank Tassone had a problem. The erudite, widely admired superintendent of the Roslyn, Long Island, school districtthe North Shore public-school system he had managed to make, based on test scores, one of the ten best in Americafound himself confronted in the fall of 2002 with a rather awkward, potentially embarrassing situation. His assistant superintendent for business had been caught stealing $250,000, writing school checks to cover her credit-card bills and impetuously racking up mammoth purchases at a Home Depot several towns away. And the school-board members were sitting in the districts conference room, waiting for Tassone to tell them what to do.

If you want a job where you get blame for everything, credit for nothing, and no real reward, try running for the Roslyn school board. Everyone on the North Shore has a child who is a genius, or demands extra attention, or has a guidance counselor who needs some sense talked into him. In darker moments, its you against the community you hoped to serve, with only the superintendentthe proto help you with the tough decisions. The pro, in this case, was Tassone, always dressed in the freshly pressed wardrobe of a CEO, with the academic pedigree and easygoing authority of a literature professor. That night, Tassone made a moving, eloquent argument for compassion and leniency. The culprit, Pam Gluckin, had tearfully confessed, he said. Her marriage was falling apart, she was ill, shed been desperate. And if the board didnt press charges, shed agree to quietly resign, give up her administrators license, and give back the money right away.

Not everybody went for it at first. Some board members wondered if they had a moral obligation to throw the book at her. But Tassone warned that if this sort of thing wasnt handled gingerly, it could take years to go away. Gluckin was a tenured civil-service worker who made $160,000. If the board pressed charges, shed keep earning that money for years as the case crept through the courts. But if she left on her own, Roslyn could save that money and get back what it lost. No harm, no foul.

Others wondered if letting her go was even legal. So it was something of a relief that Tassone had thought of this, too. He had asked a criminal lawyer, a former Nassau County prosecutor, to come to the meetingand that lawyer advised them that as a matter of law, victims of embezzlement didnt have to press charges.

As the board had come to expect of him, Tassone was putting into words what they knew, but didnt know they knew. Roslyn may be no wealthier than Great Neck or Syosset or Jericho, but its schools were seen as the best. A diploma from Roslyn High School is the closest you can get on Long Island to a ticket to Harvard; every year, a quarter of the seniors get into highly selective colleges. Did they want camera crews on school grounds, or auditors sniffing around the district office? Would Ivy League admissions officers look at Roslyn students the same way? What, Tassone said, would happen to property values?

His message was clear: No good could come from going public. Voters could hardly be expected to reelect school-board members whod let something like that happen in a place like this.

And he was probably right. But what the board couldnt have known was that Tassone was not just protecting Pam Gluckin. He was also protecting himself.

The seemingly monastic bachelor, it appears, was living with one man in Manhattan while owning a house in Las Vegas with a 32-year-old male exotic dancer.

Clustered in a wooded enclave of Levittown-style homes mingled with compact mansions on tiny lots, the villages of Roslyn and East Hills make up an enlightened community with forward-thinking public schoolsthe first on Long Island with free condoms in a jar in the health room, one of the first in the state with a community-service requirement for high-school graduation. At least one student has parked a Hummer in the Roslyn High School lot, and a flat-screen TV posts schedules in the halls. Parents are so determined to buff their kids transcripts that the high school now offers honors classes to any student who wants them. In April, the Wall Street Journal called Roslyn High the sixth-best public high school in America, not far behind Stuyvesant and Hunter.

Then, in May, the roof fell in. According to Nassau County prosecutors, Frank Tassone had spent his twelve years in Roslyn quietly running one of the most audacious scams ever to afflict a public-school system. The coffers were plundered in practically every imaginable wayexpense-account padding, vendor-bidding violations, check-record fabrications, even the creation of phony businesses. Tassone allegedly had the district pay for two trips to London on the Concorde, one for $20,000 and another for $30,000, including $1,800-a-night suites, and a half-dozen jaunts to Las Vegas with his friendsincluding Roslyn Highs popular principal, Jay Stollerwhere the district even staked some of Tassones gambling money. The D.A. says that by the time he was arrested on July 6, Tassone had saved enough money to transfer $300,000 to bank accounts in his sisters names.

Both Tassone and Gluckin have been arrested for first-degree larceny, and the court has frozen their assets as they await indictment. But its doubtful Roslyn will ever get back what was lost. Theres a reported $8 million missing, and the district attorneys auditors havent finished counting. After a wave of other resignations, the D.A. says more arrests may be on the way.

Whats just as surprising to the parents and teachers of Roslyn is that Tassone had been living something of a double life. The seemingly monastic bachelor who had an old wedding photo on a shelf in his officeand spoke wistfully of the young woman he married who died of cancerturned out, it appears, to be living with one man in Manhattan while owning a house in Las Vegas with a 32-year-old male exotic dancer. Now, at the start of a new school year, parents are left wondering what, if anything, was real about the man who won their trust and made their schools the envy of Long Island. How could a twelve-year, $8 million scam go down right under their noses? And perhaps most troubling: Did Frank Tassone deceive Roslyn, or, out of a desire to give its children the best, did Roslyn allow itself to be deceived by Frank Tassone?

Being the head of a wealthy school system is a little like being the headwaiter at Alain Ducasse. Youre at the top of your profession, but at the end of the day, youre still a waiter. Working here is about client satisfaction, says Charlie Piemonte, Roslyns assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction. The concerns people have for their kids are serious at a very young age. Its like a business. They put their kids on a pathif youre in a gifted program, if you get the teacher everybody loves, if you get A.P. classes. Its an untenable job.

Tassone, however, made it look easy. Frank was really the master, Piemonte says. I mean, this guy was loved. He walked on water.

From the moment he arrived, Tassone understood that in a place like Roslyn, parents expected the schools to be more than just the stewards of educationthey also had to be shimmering reflections of the community. His own credentials were certainly first-rate. Brought up in a rowhouse in the Pelham Bay section of the Bronx, Tassone went on to earn a B.A. from Iona College in Westchester and then two masters degreesin educational administration and languages and literatureand a doctorate in educational administration at Teachers College, where he wrote his dissertation on Dickens. He worked as an administrator in Westchester and Levittown before landing in Roslyn in 1992.

Every new program Tassone started played into Roslyns sense of prideor, perhaps, vanity. He brought foreign-language classes into the elementary schools, and a values education curriculum to the high school, including the community-service requirement. He embraced senior citizens by starting discussion groups and hosting an annual community dinner-dancescheduled, shrewdly, right before the annual vote on the school budget. School employees learned to look forward to birthday cards signed Dr. Tassone, and congratulatory gift baskets on anniversaries. And he disarmed potential dissenters face to face, meeting by meetingsitting still as an owl at his offices conference table, hands folded in his lap, head nodding.

Once, when four elementary-school teachers complained about their principal, Tassone both talked with the principal and sent the four teachers a T-shirt. One shirt read 2TEACH + 2TOUCH LIVES = 4EVER. He couldnt do too much wrong in my eyes after that, one of the teachers says. I liked that he was so approachable. A few years after he arrived, the Rotary Club named him man of the year.

There were limits to how much Tassone would reveal about his private life. The most hed tell colleagues was that hed been briefly married. Frank said his wife, Joanne, died at a very early age, says Eleanor Russell, the teachers-union president. She had some kind of an illness. He had a wedding picture in his office. But outwardly, he lived the way the people of Roslyn seemed to want a superintendent to live. His Mercedes was one example. Serving lobster tails to other superintendents at a regional luncheon was another. Youre not going to find many superintendents who live like Frank, because were afraid to, another Long Island school superintendent says. You dont want to appear overpaid. He lived the opposite way. He acted as if he was entitled to itto the car, to the clothes, to the money.

During working lunches, Tassone would go on about how the school district should act like any private corporation with an $80 million budget. He thought the salaries of administrators should be as high as possible, says Piemonte. That these jobs had a great deal of subtlety and required education. Hed say, Look at the CEO of IBMtheyre making zillions and were making $200,000. 

If Tassone was the proud father of the Roslyn family, Pam Gluckin was the fun-loving aunt. Bubbly and industrious, the mother of two liked to poke fun at herself and how hard she worked. If the board assigned her a task, one board member says, she used to joke, All of you go home, stay with your children; Ill be working till six oclock in the morning on this one.  She commuted from middle-class Bellmore but lived very much like a typical Roslyn working mom, with homes in Westhampton Beach and Florida, and a Jaguar with a vanity plate reading DUNENUTN.

Gluckin became one of Tassones closest confidantes at the office. She arrived two years before Tassone as a treasurer, and Tassone promoted her until she landed the districts top-money job, assistant superintendent for business. They were very comfortable with each other, playful, jovial, a former board member says. He made a lot of jokes about how she had a lot of names because she was married so many timesand about her dogs, which he said were like her children. After staff lunches, Gluckin would stay behind to kibitz with Tassone, sometimes for more than an hour.

Pam went everywhere with him, says Eleanor Russell. She would attend meetings at individual schools, and districtwide committee meetings, like the committee on special education or enrollment. He relied on Pam to do everything. Hed say, Oh, Pam will work it out.  She was the one who handed out the gas credit cards and approved trips to other cities for conferences, and furnished some board members with computers and cell phones. A few employees even got Jeeps.

One Roslyn parent calls Tassone Pecksniffian. The name refers to a Dickens character who exploits the weaknesses of others, and is selfish and corrupt behind a display of benevolence.

Some say Tassone simply wasnt good with numbersthat language was his forte. And if at times Gluckin seemed sloppy, too, Tassone would be protective of her. One time she gave me a check for too much money for the benefit fund and she told me to just keep it, Russell remembers. I said, Are you kidding? She said, Whats the big deal? Well owe you money in a couple months and thatll cover it. I took the check to Frank and he tried to minimize her mistake, saying, Its not that important. 

It was pure luck that allowed Tassone to get a look at the anonymous letter before the media did. The letter had been sent in February to a Whos Who of local politicians, but one copy went to the wrong address. And since the envelope had been disguised to look like it was from the school district, the post office routed it straight to Tassones office.

We believe that Dr. Frank Tassone participated in this embezzlement scandal so as to support HIS lavish lifestyle, with the help of Ms. Gluckin. He submitted . . . his personal credit-card statements, bills for personal vacations and trips, and various household bills . . . and included them in the cover-up.

But before anyone could start pointing fingers at Tassone, he launched a preemptive defense. He calls me in, and he says, Theres this letter and none of its true,  Piemonte remembers. Secretaries in the building, union leaders, custodians, school administrators, the PTAthey all were summoned, hearing firsthand how shocked he was that the business manager had done this to themto us, to the Roslyn community. And the community believed him. Some even praised him for being so forthcoming. While spending perhaps a bit too much time trying to find out who the author was, Tassone had little trouble finding ways to discredit the letter itself: The districts return address on the envelope was misspelled; so was Tassones name.

When the D.A. launched its investigation in February, it was Tassone who suggested bringing back Andrew Miller, the accountant who had noticed the missing $250,000 two years earlier, to go through the books of Gluckins tenure with a fine-tooth comb. This time, thanks to the leads from the letter, Miller found a more professional style of embezzlement than hed seen in 2002phony companies, for example, instead of just suspicious checks. Soon, Miller put the amount of missing money at $1 million. Newsday caught wind of it and reported itand the community stepped in, demanding its pound of flesh. Once-sleepy school-board meetings became last spring as stormy as Knesset hearings, lit garishly by those TV crews the board had feared two years earlier.

Still, the target of Roslyns anger wasnt Tassone; it was the school board. The decision to protect Gluckin back in 2002to let her resign rather than pressing chargeswas seen as collusive, conspiratorial, even Faustian. Tassone, for his part, was seen by Roslynites as valiantly coming to the boards defense, telling everyone who would listen how upset he was, how betrayed they all felt by Gluckin. We called it The Seduction of Pam Gluckin,  one former board member says.

State Comptroller Alan Hevesi vowed to audit Roslyns books. And before long, the community rallied behind Tassone. The Journal piece naming Roslyn High School one of the nations best public high schools was published April 2, and at the next board meeting parents stood up pledging support for their superintendent. In a local newspaper column, Tassone tried to explain why they let Gluckin resign without pressing charges, effectively passing the buck to the accountant and lawyer who had advised the board. If we had known then everything we know now, he wrote, we would certainly have taken a different course of action.

There was only one problem: The accountant and lawyer wouldnt take the fall. At an explosive April board meeting, Tom Hession, the attorney who had advised the board in 2002, insisted that he had been telling the board only what was legal, not ethical. Andrew Miller also defended himself, noting that auditors for New York State school districts arent supposed to be looking for outright fraud, just irregularities. Board president Bill Costigan, searching for answers, asked Tassone where he had found Tom Hession in the first place. Tassone said he was referred by Carol Hoffman, the districts usual lawyer. But when Costigan called Hoffman, she was outraged, arguing that Hession had been brought in by Tassone. And when Costigan confronted Tassone, Tassone changed his story, saying Hession was referred by someone else.

Until that moment, most everyone in Roslyn still seemed to believe Tassone had been in the dark about Gluckin. But Costigan couldnt help but wonder: Did Tassone go shopping for a favorable legal opinion before that meeting in 2002? Had the whole Gluckin resignation been stage-managed by the superintendent? From that point forward, Costigan decided never to meet with Tassone alone.

By late April, Tassones office was under siege. Gluckins records were rapidly turning out to be fiction. Newsday was filing almost daily public-information requests, uncovering check records for hundreds of thousands of dollars with companies that, once contacted, said theyd received nowhere near that amount. Slowly, others besides Costigan started wondering how Tassone couldnt have known about this. By then, Tassone was like a wraith, barely there in spirit even when he did bother to show up physically. His cell-phone records show that he spent much of March and April jetting to Las Vegas, Puerto Rico, then California, Florida, and Las Vegas twice again. At first, his employees shrugged and joked that he managed to be out of town every time he had to decide to call a snow day. Now they wondered if he was ducking trouble.

On May 12, Bill Costigan got a call from a lawyer for the school district, telling him to call Andrew Miller as soon as possible.

We may have uncovered more than $1 million, Miller said. And I think it involves Frank.

The same superintendent who introduced values-based education into the school system also had billed the district for his Upper East Side rent, his Mercedes, even jewelry and skin treatments. Miller said he discovered that Tassone had padded his expense account with the most ridiculous purchaseslike $33,141 for the dry cleaning that always draped his office conference table.

When Tassone met with Costigan and board member Karen Bodner the next day, Costigan was angry enough to suggest that Tassone consider resigning. But Tassone brushed him off.

Look at my contract, they recall Tassone saying. It covers all reasonable expenses. 

Maybe we should have bought your clothes, too? Costigan asked.

Well, thats a matter of opinion, said Tassone.

What if the D.A. indicts you on this? Costigan asked.

Thatll never happen, said Tassone.

Tassones final public appearance in Roslyn turned out to be a PTA meeting on May 28, the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. The missing amount of money had just escalated to $5 million, and Tassone and the board had decided to fire accountant Andrew Miller. The districts lawyers were also let go.

Were your supporters, said Faith Russo, a mother of two boys at Harbor Hill Elementary. Why do we have to hear about this from someone else?

Russo was shocked to see Tassone pointing at her, screaming: Youre going to listen to me! Youre going to listen to me! He wouldnt let her finish, says Denyse Dreksler, another mother. He went from being the therapist to the manic.

Russos heart sank. She realized she was upsetting a powerful person in her life. I was afraid my kids were gonna get custodians as teachers, she says.

To her relief, Amy Katz, another PTA member, came to her aid. You keep changing your story, she said to Tassone.

And another mom, Lisa Levine, started asking about the districts new lawsuit against Gluckin.

I dont know, Tassone said, throwing up his hands. The law firm knows.

Is that the same law firm that you just fired? asked Levine.

Steam seemed to be escaping from Tassones ears. Finally he exploded.

How many of you ladies in here are lawyers?

Sure enough, Russo, Katz, and Levine were all lawyers. So were other moms in the room.

It took Anthony Annunziato just a few hours at his new job to connect the meat of the scandal to Frank Tassone. On June 1, Roslyns new assistant superintendent for businessPam Gluckins long-awaited replacementstarted his day by looking into a company called WordPower that, over the past dozen years, had collected $800,000 from Roslyn, mainly for word processing. What bothered him was that the company wasnt located in Roslyn, but in Manhattanspecifically, at Tassones home address, 160 East 88th Street. It took just a few keystrokes, using an Internet reverse phone directory, for Annunziato to find that the number of WordPower CEO Steve Signorelli was connected not just to Tassones address but to his apartment.

Before long, Annunziato spoke to Tassone, by phone, in Ft. Lauderdale.

Frank, Annunziato said. These people live in your apartment.

Well, they live in my building, Tassone said. Annunziato couldnt believe he was sticking to that story. But then Tassone changed tactics.

We have to figure out how were going to spin this, Tassone said.

Im not sure you can, said Annunziato.

The whole thing reminded Annunziato of the movie No Way Out with Kevin Costner. He knew he was going to get caught.

Bill Costigan called an emergency meeting for June 2. Tassone caught wind of it and called Costigan from Florida.

The board doesnt meet without the superintendent, Tassone said coolly.

You told me youd be home today, Costigan said.

Ill see what I can do, Tassone said.

On June 4, the day after he came home, Tassone was relieved of duty by the board.

For an $8 million embezzlement, the Roslyn scandal was remarkably low-tech. The trick, prosecutors say, was in the check-writing. When Gluckin decided to pay her mortgage to Wells Fargo Bank with the districts money, for example, she simply notated Wells Fargo in the check ledger, knowing that the district used a security company called Wells Fargo. In other cases, she abbreviated: M&T could be Manufacturers and Traders Trust Co., the mortgage holder on Gluckins waterfront home in Bellmore, which was paid a recorded $56,881.96.

It also helped that Tassone appears to have stocked the district with friends. There was a district clerk, Debra Rigano, who arranged travel for the administrators for those trips to Vegas, New Orleans, Boston, and London, and who moonlighted with a travel agency that gave her commissions for her bookings. (One frequent companion of Tassones on those trips, it turns out, was his apparent apartment mate, WordPower CEO Steve Signorelli.) Riganos aunt happens to be Pam Gluckin, and even after Gluckin resigned in 2002, Rigano was kept on. She was finally let go the same day Tassone resigned, after it was discovered Tassone approved a one-hour overtime charge for her of $1,081.

There was also Tom Galinski, the buildings-and-grounds supervisor, who once worked in the same district as Gluckin and who flew at no expense with Tassone on many of those trips to Las Vegas. Before being hired by Roslyn, Galinski had worked for a contractor he subsequently recommended to redo Roslyn Highs leaking roof. When the leak persisted, Roslyn hired them to do it again, and again, and again.

And there was Al Razzetti, a personnel consultant whom Tassone made an internal auditorrubber-stamping every bill and check Tassone and Gluckin wrote. Tassone kept him on the payroll even after the board declined to renew his contract. Finally, Razzetti had a sister, Fran Pertusi, whom Tassone made a consultant, earning $300,000 over nine years. Pertusi happened to be a close friend of Tassones from his days as superintendent in Levittown.

Who was minding the store? The auditor, Andrew Miller, wasnt supposed to confirm with every listed check recipient that the money was properly recorded. No school district has that kind of oversightsomething Hevesi is addressing now. In the past five years, auditors have checked the books of just fourteen of Long Islands 124 school districts, even though they spend more than $7 billion in total annually. Tassone and Gluckin, with years of experience between them, must have understood that.

As the scandal unfolded, details of Tassones private life became public. In April, he reportedly closed on a house in the Las Vegas suburbs with Jason Daugherty, a onetime motorcycle salesman and exotic dancer, who, it turns out, employees remember visited the office a few times. A clerk in the district, Phyllis Zampino, recognizes Daughertys name as the recipient of FedEx packages Tassone sent every week from the district for the past yearsince about the time Gluckin was forced to retire. No one in the office seems to know what was in those packages. Between Daugherty and Signorelli, Roslyn had plenty to dish about over the summer. If the implication is that Tassone is gay, many Roslynites now claim they suspected as much all along; they just never said so. This is a very socially advanced community, very liberal, one of Tassones old employees says. Its like it wouldnt have been cool even to bring it up. Neither Daugherty nor Signorelli has commented on their sexuality, or anything else.

Hindsight has dredged up all sorts of revisionist judgments of Tassone. Some now remember him as popping herbal vitality pills, and, at one point, fen-phen. He used $56,645 in school money to pay for treatments by a Manhattan weight-loss doctor named Steven Lamm, though he told Newsday he paid for the treatments out of his own pocket. Says one parent: Suddenly its not Frank in a Ford Taurus with his pants way up to hereits Frank with his hair slicked back and a face-lift. Parents and teachers couldnt fail to notice long light scars behind his ears. A few years into his tenure, he showed up to a parents meeting with small bruises around both eyes. He said he had been boxing, but people in Roslyn know an eye tuck when they see one.

Not that any of this raised eyebrows at the time. He made $250,000, says Bill Costigan. He was single. He told us he lived in a rent-stabilized building. So when he showed up in a Brooks Brothers suit, that made perfect sense. And he had a $500 car allowance. You could lease a Mercedes with that.

Judi Winters, a neighborhood activist who, in almost daily e-mail blasts to Roslyn neighbors, has compared the scandal to Vietnam, tells me she has come up with the perfect way to describe Tassone: Pecksniffian. The name refers to Mr. Pecksniff, a Dickens character who exploited the weaknesses of others, and who is selfish and corrupt behind a display of benevolence.

Frank is a tremendous manipulator of people, fumes Andrew Miller, which is probably why some people thought he was a great superintendent.

And while Peter Mancuso, the assistant district attorney handling the case, does admit that Tassone was not the person who was actually signing the districts checks, the prosecutor insists that Tassone lies at the heart of this. Hes the person who benefited from those checks.

Gluckin and Tassone, out on bail, arent commenting other than to profess their innocence. Tassones lawyer, Ed Jenks, is relying heavily on the porous terms of Tassones contract to justify the superintendents extravagances. Neighbors speculate that Gluckin may cut a deal to implicate Tassone, while Tassone is expected to cast himself as a hapless naïf, entangled by Gluckins schemes. Then there are those who believe Gluckin and Tassone are only part of the problem. Pat Schissel, a nineteen-year veteran of the school board who has been castigated in meetings for having accepted the free use of a cell phone and computer from the district (Dr. Tassone said Okay,  she told me plaintively), suggests that Roslyn is a Peyton Place situation. Its hard to keep your values if you ever had them. I think people can get caught up in that. And Frank may have gotten caught up in that.

So Roslyn is to blame? Naturally, this isnt the most popular opinion in town. There were so many things Frank tended to very carefully, says Charlie Piemonte. It would be pretty hard to think he was this bumbling administrator who got swept up.

At the start of the school year, the scandal still hasnt stopped claiming careers. Theres a new superintendent, a new school-board president, and a new high-school principal. Bill Costigan has stepped down as president, but he refused to leave the board, saying no one was more duped by Tassone than he was. Of course, in making that claim, he has plenty of company.

My life is now The Sixth Sense, says Karen Bodner, who was voted out of office in June. Even now, she stays up late thinking about the night after that fateful meeting in 2002, consoling Tassone in the lobby of a Syracuse hotel where the board was staying for a school-board conference.

He was so distraught, she says. He needed to ventHow could Pam do this? And I said, She must be a sociopathic personality, because it seems like such an amateur way of embezzling moneyits not even clever. And we talked for hourshes drawing this out of me! And then later I learn that hes doing the same thing?

Maybe he was trying to figure out whether any of us suspected him, she goes on. Here hes a Ph.D., hes a Dickens scholar. He must have thought we were rich people from the North Shore, we were spoiled, we were whatever.

Still, she cant help thinking fondly of the man she considered a mentor. As much as she can know anything, Bodner still believesmaybe she needs to believethat Frank Tassone was capable of kindness.

I was going through a separation last summer, and he called me from Europe to see how I was doing, Bodner says. He seemed legitimately concerned. And I cant tell you now that he wasnt. But maybe that phone call was him making sure everyone was behind him. These are questions Ill never have the answers to.

Its The Music Man, I suggest.

Yes, it is, Bodner says. Thats exactly what it is.