Ex-New Rochelle school board president called out for using district phone in Europe

Phone records from the now-former New Rochelle school board president has revealed that he used his district cellphone for personal use while on vacation.

News 12 Staff

Jul 15, 2019, 9:34 PM

Updated 1,957 days ago

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Phone records from the now-former New Rochelle school board president has revealed that he used his district cellphone for personal use while on vacation.
The Verizon phone bills collected over a three-month period from Jeffrey Hastie show usage when he was overseas. Several reports say Hastie, who ended his five-year term on the Board of Education last month, used a district cellphone while on vacation traveling through Europe.

The bills show that between October and December of last year, Hastie spent more than $2,000 in voice and data charges, under an international travel plan, for his phone the district provided to him.
In April, when confronted on a local radio show, Hastie denied any wrongdoing and said he plans on getting the money back from Verizon.
Hastie admits that he did rack up a phone bill, and once he found out about it, he reached out to the project manager in the finance department about it.  He said that he has been overseas twice since then, and there have been no bills because he uses his own personal phone now.
News 12 asked a district spokesman if Hastie will be paying back the money to the city. The spokesman says the board is not commenting until after a meeting on Thursday to discuss personnel matters.