STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Embattled Dreyfus Intermediate School Principal Linda Hill has told her staff she plans to retire in June. Ms. Hill, the subject of a probe by the city's Office of Special Investigations (OSI) for misappropriation of funds, received a letter of reprimand and was made to pay back $800 to the Department of Education that should...
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Embattled Dreyfus Intermediate School Principal Linda Hill has told her staff she plans to retire in June.
Ms. Hill, the subject of a probe by the city's Office of Special Investigations (OSI) for misappropriation of funds, received a letter of reprimand and was made to pay back $800 to the Department of Education that should not have been allocated to her. She has been principal of the Stapleton intermediate school for more than a decade.
She broke the news to her faculty Monday at the conclusion of a morning staff meeting, according to several faculty members there.
Ms. Hill told staff she is stepping down after a 40-year career with the school system as an educator and administrator, adding that she would stay on until the end of the school year.
If she retires before the end of June, in addition to her pension, union officials said she could be eligible for a one-time, lump-sum payout -- perhaps as much as $70,000 -- in retroactive wages under the contract agreement reached between the city and the Council of Supervisors and Administrators (CSA).
The DOE could not confirm her pending retirement until paperwork had been filed and completed. A spokesman said she remains as the school's active principal.
The DOE began to inspect Ms. Hill's workplace time-sheets in early 2012, after a teacher at the school tipped off investigators that the longtime administrator may be abusing the per session or overtime system.
The whistle-blower, former Dreyfus science and technology teacher Francesco Portelos, alleged Ms. Hill was clocking overtime for supervising an after-school program, while she was actually attending monthly meetings of the School Leadership Team.
A lengthy OSI probe found Ms. Hill misallocated a total of $800 over the course of the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 school years.
Payroll records show that Ms. Hill, who earned a salary of $146,713 last year, took home an average of more than $11,000 in per session (overtime) fees in 2010 and 2011, before the allegations of her double -dipping surfaced.
Ms. Hill admitted under oath that she double-dipped during a court deposition last October, but denied that it was done intentionally. She said she stopped double- billing the district after being informed that she was under investigation for the practice, according to court transcripts.
She was also under investigation for alleged procurement violations committed in 2010.
The allegations, which charged she skirted purchasing limits on her DOE-issued Procurement Card or P-Card, by splitting up payments made to the same vendor, were also brought to the DOE's attention by Portelos.
The former Dreyfus teacher, who now serves in the district's Absent Teacher Reserve pool, was removed from the classroom in 2012 and spent two years in a rubber room while under investigation for dozens of misconduct complaints initiated by Ms. Hill, that he claims were lodged in retaliation for reporting her financial improprieties.
Last year, an independent arbitrator found Portelos guilty on 11 of the 38 charges brought against him and recommended a $10,000 fine, but denied the DOE's request to terminate him and ruled that he could return to the classroom. He now serves as a substitute for absent teachers at schools across the borough.