040404 NYP- Teach-pension big quits over phone-y bill

SCHOOLS

BHES

BVES

FOX LANE HIGH SCHOOL

FLMS

MKES

PRES

SCANDALS

The Public Schools of Westchester County New York

040404 NYP- Teach-pension big quits over phone-y bill

The executive director of the Teachers Retirement System has resigned after investigators uncovered irregularities in his cell-phone and credit card bills.

Sources said Stanley Kessock, a city employee since 1973, was tripped up when $453 in personal calls by his daughter turned up in his official cell-phone bills last year.

The sources said Kessock also brought his wife to a conference in Florida and charged her $192 air fare and both their meal plans, totaling $579, to his TRS-issued credit card.

Kessock, who, earned $162,800 a year, reimbursed about $1,200 of $2,000 in improper charges uncovered by special schools investigator Richard Condon. Condon recommended on Dec. 8 that Kessock be removed. Nearly four months later, Kessock quit.

"Mr. Kessock resigned on March 29 and the Teachers Retirement board accepted his resignation," said Sam Miller, spokesman for Finance Commissioner Martha Stark, the board's chairwoman.

There was no public announcement.

Kessock declined comment when approached by The Post last week at his home in Brooklyn.

He claimed he was "on vacation."

The Teachers Retirement System serves more than 150,000 active and retired members with assets exceeding $27 billion.

∎

Mario Bruno, a Staten Island political operative, has been granted a waiver by Mayor Bloomberg to remain on the city payroll while he runs for a state Assembly seat.

Records show Bruno has taken 123.3 days off in the 36 months he's been employed as an $85,000-a-year assistant commissioner at the Department of Youth and Community Development.

That averages out to eight weeks a year.

And it doesn't include the seven months between May 2001 and January 2002, when Bruno left the payroll to handle the campaign of Borough President Jim Molinaro.