Current Events
Roslyn, Long Island's Culture of 'Permissive Spending'
"...the culture of the district was to do that type of thing." Lawyer for former Principal being investigated for fraud. Now we know why no one is minding the store- it's a cultural thing. Betsy Combier
L.I. School Leaders' Lawyers Say Largess Sowed Confusion
By MICHELLE O'DONNELL, NY TIMES, August 25, 2004 The lawyer for Frank A. Tassone, the former Roslyn schools superintendent who was charged last month with stealing more than $1 million from a district on Long Island, has said that the generous terms of his contract led him to confuse what would and would not be paid. Yesterday, a lawyer for Jayson C. Stoller, the former principal of Roslyn High School and the latest district employee to be removed from his position as a result of the widening investigation, said that his client was also a victim of the district's culture of permissive spending. The lawyer, John Bracken, said that Dr. Stoller, 54, should not be blamed for billing the district for trips that were not business related. "If the culture of the district was to do that type of thing, what was my client's obligation?" Mr. Bracken said. "The man is beside himself. The love of his life was being the principal of that high school." Yesterday, school officials released documents from a Long Island travel agency showing that in recent years Dr. Stoller billed the district for eight trips to New Orleans and Las Vegas. Officials said that they could not verify that any or all of the trips, which were usually taken with Dr. Tassone, were to attend formal educational conferences. Mr. Bracken called the trips mini-retreats planned by Dr. Tassone, who essentially directed Dr. Stoller to attend. "They would meet and have their meetings and discussions and go their separate ways," Mr. Bracken said of the trips, which frequently included Dr. Tassone's roommate, Stephen Signorelli, who earned $800,000 doing desktop publishing for the district, and Thomas Galinski, the district's maintenance supervisor. "Absolutely, you can do that in a diner, you can do that in Hicksville. I think the culture was, as established by Tassone, was that this is the way they did things." The travel agency's records show that Dr. Stoller took two trips with his son and wife, but Mr. Bracken said the district was repaid for their costs. The records also show that Dr. Tassone, whose contract allowed him one trip to Europe a year, traveled twice to London on the Concorde with a companion. One trip was in 2001; the date of the other is unclear. Many parents saw Dr. Stoller as an innovative and energetic principal of Roslyn, a top-flight high school that this year is sending 17 graduates to Cornell University, 7 to Duke and others to Brown, Amherst and other prestigious universities and colleges. The school board will meet later this week to discuss his replacement. Officials would not say what the new assignment would be for Dr. Stoller, whose salary this year is $161,509. Also yesterday, Alan G. Hevesi, the state comptroller, named six more school districts whose expenses are being audited, bringing to 20 the number of Long Island school districts under scrutiny. They are Baldwin, Elmont and Massapequa in Nassau County and East Islip, Riverhead and Sachem in Suffolk County. |