School Chief and Clerk on Leave as Inquiry Widens in Roslyn
By STACY ALBIN and MICHELLE O'DONNELL(NY TIMES, June 5, 2004)

ROSYLN, N.Y., June 4 - A financial scandal at the school district in the wealthy Long Island community of Roslyn widened Friday with the suspension of the superintendent and the niece of a former assistant superintendent who has been accused of stealing more than $1 million. School officials said they were investigating possible links between the employees and companies that did business or may have done business with the district.

The suspended employees, Superintendent Frank A. Tassone, and a clerk in accounts receivable, Debra Rigano, were placed on paid leave. Ms. Rigano is a niece of Pamela C. Gluckin, the district's former assistant superintendent for business who on Tuesday pleaded not guilty to grand larceny charges.

A school official, Anthony Annunziato, said that the district would try to determine if a company set up by Ms. Rigano, Wordplus, had ever billed the district for expenses. Another company, WordPower, which was set up by Mr. Tassone, is also under investigation.

The scandal was touched off when the school board acknowledged that Ms. Gluckin, 58, had been allowed to resign quietly in 2002 when school funds - at the time it was thought to be $250,000 - turned out to be missing. Officials are investigating $7.8 million in questionable transactions.

Ms. Rigano worked for Ms. Gluckin for 10 years as a clerk in accounts receivable, school officials said. Informed late Friday that Wordplus lists Debra Rigano and her home address as its contact, Mr. Annunziato, the district's new assistant superintendent of business, confirmed that the company had been established as a vendor in September 2001.

Mr. Annunziato said that it appeared a deposit had been made into Wordplus's account, but that it was later liquidated. He said he would investigate whether the vendor had ever been paid.

In Dr. Tassone's case, school officials said that a business called WordPower billed the district for several hundred thousand dollars over a decade and shares the address of Dr. Tassone's apartment in Manhattan. They did not say why Ms. Rigano, who reported directly to her aunt, was also placed on paid leave, but that they had forwarded documents related to her to county prosecutors.

A school official also admitted yesterday that the district destroyed 27 boxes of documents in April. The board president, William Costigan, said he was told by the former assistant superintendent of human resources that Dr. Tassone has authorized a routine shredding of outdated documents.

Until Ms. Gluckin was allowed to resign in October 2002, Ms. Rigano worked for her, officials said. Barry Edelson, a spokesman for the district, said Ms. Rigano was transferred to the guidance counseling office at Roslyn High School shortly after Ms. Gluckin left. He said he did not know if her transfer was related to any impropriety. Mr. Annunziato, who replaced Ms. Gluckin, said that documents relating to Ms. Rigano had been turned over to the Nassau County district attorney's office.

Rick Hinshaw, a spokesman for the district attorney, Denis Dillon, refused to confirm whether Ms. Rigano was under criminal investigation. He said, "every aspect and every allegation of the Roslyn school district is being thoroughly investigated."

The board's suspension of Dr. Tassone, who was Ms. Gluckin's direct supervisor, and Ms. Rigano, her subordinate, shows the board's new willingness to broaden its inquiry into the district's finances, in part due to community outrage.

Before a crowded room of reporters, students and residents at the district's office yesterday, Mr. Costigan, the school board president, said that WordPower, shares the same address as Dr. Tassone's apartment, 160 East 88th Street. The company's Web Site, www.word-power.net, lists two contacts, Steve Signorelli and Joan Hurford. Mr. Signorelli, 59, and Dr. Tassone, 57, share the same East 88th Street apartment, according to voting records. And Ms. Hurford, 56, also lives in the building, but in a different apartment, according to records.

WordPower has billed the district for amounts varying from $400 to $14,000 since it began doing business with the district in 1993. Under state law, contracts less than $20,000 are not required to go out for public bid.

In the decade since 1993, the district has paid the company several hundreds of thousands of dollars for processing school pamphlets and directories, Mr. Annunziato said.

Dr. Tassone, who earned $225,000 last school year, was told Thursday night of the district's decision to suspend him, Mr. Annunziato said.

Ms. Rigano, whose salary last year was $50,064, was informed of her status on Friday, he said.

Ms. Rigano did not return a call to her home in Mamaronek, N.Y., which is in Westchester County. Dr. Tassone also did not return a call.

Mr. Annunziato said that the district had turned over documents relating to Ms. Rigano and Dr. Tassone to the district attorney's office, but refused to say whether all of these materials related to WordPower. He said the documents relating to WordPower, which had provided word processing services for school handbooks, involved purchase orders.

Dr. Tassone has worked for the Roslyn district since 1992. He received a master's and a Doctorate in Education from Columbia University. From 1989 to 1992, he worked as a superintendent in Rye Neck district in Westchester. From 1986 to 1988, he was an assistant superintendent of instruction in the Levittown school district on Long Island, after leaving the Mahopac school district, where he worked as a principal. The Levittown superintendent, Herman A. Sirois, said that he could not disclose the circumstances surrounding for Dr. Tassone's departure because of the confidentiality issues. However, there was no indication that the district had done business with WordPower, he said.

Mr. Annunziato said that Ms. Rigano did not have power to sign checks or purchase orders.

Ms. Rigano is listed as the contact for Wordplus, a company that was operated from her home. Mr. Annunziato said there was no record that the district has done business with Wordplus.

On May 25, the treasurer of the school board, Michael Barkin, resigned without explanation. He could not be reached for comment.

June 3, 2004
Former Auditor of Roslyn, L.I., School District Questions $7 Million in Transactions
By MICHELLE O'DONNELL

The former auditor of the Roslyn, N.Y., school district has identified $7 million in questionable transactions involving district funds, the school board's president, William Costigan, said yesterday.

Shortly after anonymous allegations surfaced in February that Pamela C. Gluckin, the former assistant superintendent for business, had stolen large amounts of money, the district in Nassau County asked the auditor, Andrew Miller of the firm of Miller Lilly & Pearce, to review the district's accounts for suspicious transactions. Mr. Miller reported his findings to school officials last week, Mr. Costigan said.

At its meeting on May 26, the board reported that it had been told several million dollars could be missing. That day, the board also ended the contract of Miller Lilly & Pearce, which had been the district's auditor during the period under investigation by county prosecutors, 1997 to 2002.

On Tuesday, Ms. Gluckin, 58, who officials say repaid the district $250,000 when it was discovered missing in 2002, pleaded not guilty to a first-degree grand larceny charge of stealing more than $1 million. In 2002, at the school board's request, she resigned and surrendered her administrator's license. The board voted not to disclose the case to the public, and that point has angered residents as much as details of the missing funds. The school district is one of the richest in the state.

The questionable transactions have yet to be reviewed in a detailed audit, Mr. Costigan said, and some could prove to be legitimate. Still, the new amount under investigation has shocked residents already outraged by the alleged theft. The district is now seeking a firm to conduct a thorough audit.

Andrew Miller did not respond to a request for comment.

As prosecutors build their case, two state agencies that are supposed to provide some oversight of school districts said yesterday that they never picked up on reports of any wrongdoing.

A spokesman for the State Education Department said that its teacher discipline unit had moved to a new address a mile away and never got a January 2003 letter from Roslyn school officials informing them of the case and providing Ms. Gluckin's surrender of her license. "We had no knowledge of the situation at all," said the spokesman, Jonathan Burman. "Roslyn did meet its obligation to inform us, but unfortunately we never received that report."

He added that the annual audit that the district submits is reviewed for "things that jump out at us to show us that the district is in financial distress," rather than specific transactions.

A lawyer for the district, Steve Schlesinger of Jaspan Schlesinger Hoffman, said that the $250,000 that Ms. Gluckin repaid in late 2002 was reported in the next annual audit, which was also submitted to the state comptroller.

A spokesman for State Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi, who announced on Tuesday that he would investigate whether the district had the proper controls in place, said that it was not possible to catch accounting irregularities from the annual audit.

Prosecutors say that Ms. Gluckin, who earned an annual salary of about $160,000, funneled the money to herself through expenses repaid to her as well as companies created in the names of herself and her husband, Harvey Gluckin, to maintain a lavish lifestyle that included buying four luxury homes, a Lexus, Jet Skis and extensive credit card purchases.

A home in Hobe Sound, Fla., was recently sold to pay $1 million in escrow in a civil suit the district has filed against Ms. Gluckin, prosecutors said.

Ms. Gluckin's lawyer, Victor Mevorah, said his client was innocent.

Property records show that in 1999, the Gluckins paid $700,000 for a home at 803 Dune Road in Westhampton Dunes in Suffolk County. In 2002, they paid $800,000 for the property at 785 Dune Road. Prosecutors said Ms. Gluckin is also paying a mortgage for another home on Long Island.

The couple's primary residence is a home they own at 2850 Lee Place in the southern reaches of Bellmore, a middle-class neighborhood on the South Shore of Long Island, where waterfront homes are nearly triple the size of landlocked homes.

The Lee Place home, valued at $1 million, backs up to the water, and its front faces the vast lawn of the local high school.