Former Suffolk comptroller official lands another public job

Bartolo Dalli, a former deputy Suffolk County comptroller who was let go to make room for an aide who failed a Civil Service test last year, has landed a job on another public payroll.

Dalli was hired earlier this month as a $70,000-a-year assistant comptroller at Suffolk Off-Track Betting Corp. A Conservative Party member, Dalli is the husband of former Smithtown Conservative chairwoman Janine Barbera-Dalli, an acting State Supreme Court justice.

Dalli had served as an $111,000-a-year deputy county comptroller for six years until Republican Comptroller John M. Kennedy had to find vacancies to keep aides Douglas Sutherland and Douglas Segall after they failed to score high enough on Civil Service tests to keep their jobs.

Philip Nolan, OTB president, acknowledged Dalli’s hiring, saying the agency needed additional help to deal with extra fiscal data generated by the opening of Jake’s 58, the new video slot casino in Islandia. Nolan said Dalli, a certified public accountant for more than 20 years, is “superbly qualified and we got him cheap.”

OTB, Nolan confirmed, also promoted Tiffany Legrow, stepdaughter of Huntington GOP chairwoman Toni Tepe, who has worked in OTB’s telephone betting room since 1999, where she was making $20 an hour. She will assist with financial work making $65,000 a year.