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Official who warned Reich now in Roslyn district

BY EDEN LAIKIN AND SANDRA PEDDIE | Newsday Staff Writer

February 17, 2008

The Harborfields school official who made light of Lawrence Reich's employment arrangement in a letter warning him to "correct the record" now works in the Roslyn school district, which has weathered its own financial scandal in recent years.

Joseph Dragone, who lives in Northport, retired from Harborfields in August 2006 and is entitled to a $122,000 annual state pension, records show. Later that year, he became an interim business official in Roslyn and is currently assistant superintendent for business there, making $190,000 a year. Officials from the Roslyn district could not be reached for comment.

As Harborfields deputy superintendent, Dragone sent a letter to Reich in March 2005 after seeing a Newsday story about the state chastising a part-time state worker for getting full-time benefits. Dragone, 60, wrote that he didn't want to see Reich's photo in Newsday.

"You have been reported to the ERS [state retirement system] as a full-time employee even though you have no office and filed no time records," the letter read. "Please advise how you would suggest we should, if necessary, correct the record of your 'employment' by the school district."

Dragone declined to be interviewed, saying in an e-mail: "Sorry, but other than the fact that Larry was a professional colleague in three districts in which I worked and good friend for more than 30 years, I would have no desire to comment to the news media about my relationship with him."

In Dragone's new district, the former schools superintendent, Frank Tassone, is serving 4 to 12 years for his part in a $11.2-million embezzlement scandal. Six people, four of them district employees, pleaded guilty in the theft. After the Roslyn scandal, then-state Comptroller Alan Hevesi mandated fiscal training for school board members. Dragone has taught at least one such course on Long Island.