Albany Watch

State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli just announced that he has removed three more lawyers from the state and local retirement systems and has taken away retirement system service credits from two other attorneys and an accountant. The actions are part of an ongoing review of retirement-system abuse by DiNapoli. Last month, he suspended the pensions of two Long Island attorneys and revoked membership and/or credit for several other attorneys.

“We’re moving forward, case by case,” he said in releasing news of the development. “We’re conducting a rational, in-depth examination to make sure pensions are only going to those people who have earned them.”

People who were removed from the system were Niagara Falls attorney Maria Massaro, Long Island laywers William Cullen and Nathan Swergold, and Albany-area attorney M. Cornelia Cahill. DiNapoli rescinded service credit for attorney Maureen Harris, who is from the Albany area, and Salvatore Evola, a Long Island accountant.

Massaro had been incorrectly classified by the Niagara Falls City School District as an employee, rather than an independent contractor. The district reported she worked 260 days in one year, but she did not turn in time sheets or maintain an office at the district. The district paid $95,000 to the law firm where she worked for services performed by her father and another attorney as independent contractors.

Harris and Cahill of the Girvin and Ferlazzo law firm were reported as employees by the Hamilton-Fulton-Montgomery Boards of Cooperative Educational Services. DiNapoli took action against four other members of that firm last month. Cullen was wrongly reported as an employee by two Long Island public libraries and the Franklin Square Union Free School District. Swergold and Evola were wrongly classified as employees of the Hempstead Sanitary District 1 in Nassau County.