Hevesi Calls for Increase in Oversight of Schools
By MICHELLE O'DONNELL

MINEOLA, N.Y., July 14 - Responding to charges that millions of dollars were stolen from two Long Island school districts, State Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi announced a plan Wednesday to increase financial oversight of school districts statewide.
Mr. Hevesi's $5.8 million plan calls for inserting a variety of controls over school spending, including better training for school officials, more effective audits performed for the schools and random audits conducted by the state to prevent fraud.

The plan also calls for an additional $5.4 million from the state to hire 89 auditors to examine the books of the state's school districts every five years, conducting roughly 140 audits annually. Also, $310,000 would be spent to hire five investigators to work with local prosecutors.

"We need to restore a sense of integrity, a culture of integrity, where it is needed and where it does not now exist," Mr. Hevesi said at a news conference at the office of the Nassau County comptroller, Howard Weitzman, one of the public officials gathered in a bipartisan show of support for Mr. Hevesi's plan.

The plan follows accusations of theft of more than $2 million from the Roslyn school district in Nassau County and $750,000 from the William Floyd school district in Suffolk.

In Roslyn, two former school officials, including the former superintendent, have been charged with stealing, and prosecutors said as much as $8 million might have been stolen and as many as 20 people might have been involved.

In the William Floyd district, where an ex-treasurer has been charged, officials are poring over records to determine the extent of the theft, which they say could amount to more than $1 million.

In 1981, Mr. Hevesi said, there were 376 auditors in the state comptroller's office in a unit dedicated to auditing local governments and school districts. Over the years, the number of auditors in that unit dropped to 192, he said, as his predecessors reasoned that school districts are overseen by the State Education Department. His plan calls for 281 auditors in that unit.

Kevin Quinn, a spokesman for Gov. George E. Pataki, said the governor was reviewing all the proposals to strengthen oversight of school districts' finances. "The bottom line is that the governor believes that significant oversight is sorely needed," Mr. Quinn said.

A bill introduced by State Senator Michael Balboni, a Republican from Mineola, who was with Mr. Hevesi Wednesday in a show of support, would require school districts to be audited every three years and would cost $8.6 million.

"If the Legislature wants to give us $9 million to do 140 audits, we'd be delighted," said Mr. Hevesi, whose department's budget last year was $124 million.

With his existing staff, Mr. Hevesi said, he will immediately begin auditing five more Long Island school districts. The five have not been selected, he said, but he has received suggestions from the Nassau County district attorney, Denis Dillon, as well as anonymous tips.