The Roslyn Union Free School District recently commenced legal action against its former auditors, Miller, Lilly & Pearce, LLP, the individual partners of that firm and the accountant software firm known as Finance Manager for damages in excess of $12 million.

The complaint was filed on Jan. 14, in the Nassau County Supreme Court by Farrell Fritz, P.C., a special counsel to the Roslyn Board of Education.

According to School Board President Stanley Stern, "Based upon our own internal investigation, as well as findings of the State Comptroller's office, we have brought this lawsuit against Miller, Lilly & Pearce and its partners. In addition to the claims against the district's auditors, our lawsuit also includes claims against Finance Manager, a company controlled and operated by Mr. Miller and Mr. Lilly, for failure to provide adequate safeguards to protect the district's finance system."

Stern concluded by stating that, "The Roslyn School Board will be vigilant in pursuing all individual entities who have so severely betrayed and damaged the children, parents and community of Roslyn."

Miller, Lilly & Pearce, LLP was the subject of an investigation by the Office of the New York State Comptroller, which on Jan. 6 issued a report finding that the East Setauket-based firm had failed to detect the thefts and alleged subsequent cover-ups by district employees. The comptroller's report also determined that the firm had failed to meet at least nine mandatory professional standards for conducting audits.

The board approved the legal action against Miller, Lilly & Pearce, LLP at its Jan. 13 public meeting.

This most recent action is only one of many steps taken by the district to recover those funds embezzled from the school district. Also at the Jan. 13 meeting, the board extended its retain with the firm of Guercio & Guercio in order to authorize the firm to initiate legal action against "certain and current board members." Such legal action would seek the recovery of district funds that were allegedly improperly paid to them.

In addition, the board is seeking the recovery of allegedly improper funds from retired school district personnel. This action is a response to investigations at both the county and state level, which discovered that former district employees had received final year salaries that were significantly higher than what board members were led to believe they were. Such investigations also revealed that those same employees received increases in unused vacation days. Stanley Stern has confirmed that the discrepancies in the final year salaries are in the range of "many thousands of dollars."

The board is still hoping for a "voluntary compliance" on the part of the former employees. That would mean the repayment of certain salary funds and other forms of compensation. If such compliance is not forthcoming, then the board has authorized legal action to obtain the repayments.

In all, board members say they will continue to cooperate fully with the ongoing investigations by the Nassau County District Attorney and the New York State Comptroller.