Suspended Principal Among 5 Fined by Conflicts Board

By ANDY NEWMAN

An elevator repairman who sold scrap metal from a city building and a Bronx high school principal who was already in hot water were among five city workers fined by the city's Conflicts of Interest Board in proceedings announced on Tuesday.

The principal, Lynn Passarella, of the Theatre Arts Production Company School, also known as Tapco, was fined $3,500 for trying to get her sister a job at a nonprofit organization that does business with her school, according to a stipulation she signed with the conflicts board.

Ms. Passarella has been suspended without pay since May for an unrelated matter: manipulating student grades and absence records to boost graduation rates at her school. The Department of Education is trying to have her terminated; her case awaits a termination hearing.

According to the stipulation with the conflicts board, in 2007, Ms. Passarella met with the director of t he Children's Aid Society's “Community Schools” program, which provides support and resources for more than 20 city public schools, including Tapco.

At the meeting, in which the two discussed expanding the program's involvement at Tapco, Ms. Passarella recommended that the society hire her sister to run Tapco's college preparatory program, she stated. Her sister got the job.

Ms. Passarella also paid a subordinate, a family worker at her school, $60 to prepare food for the school's Christmas party in 2008, which Ms. Passarella hosted in her home, in violation of city rules against entering into financial relationships with subordinates, according to the stipulation.

In the scrap metal case, a supervisory elevator mechanic for the city, Ralph Marinello, was fined $7,442 for selling scrap metal he removed from three buildings in the Bronx operated by the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, the conflicts board said.

Mr. Marinello said he h ad been told by a supervising custodian in the department that it was O.K. to take the scrap metal; he was misinformed. The fine amounted to half of the $14,885 he made from the sale.

Passarella Conflicts Case (PDF)

Passarella Conflicts Case (Text)