A New York City principal has been fined $7,500 after investigators found she used her position to funnel overtime pay and job protections to her live-in partner.
Bridget Garzaniti, 47, principal of the High School of Arts and Technology on the Upper West Side, approved roughly $12,000 in overtime for Curtis Williams in 2024 while he worked under her at the same school, according to a September report by the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board. The couple has shared a home since June 2017 and has a child together born that August, the report noted.
Williams, who was not fined for the overtime arrangement itself, was ordered to pay $4,250 to the COIB for his role in the violations. The financial penalties landed after the board determined both had breached rules barring public servants from using their positions to benefit romantic partners.
The overtime payments were only part of what Garzaniti directed toward Williams. In June 2024, she wrote to the district superintendent recommending Williams receive tenure, a status that grants public school employees career-long job protections that are extremely difficult to revoke. Department of Education rules require a principal’s recommendation for any tenure grant, giving Garzaniti gatekeeping power over Williams’s professional security.
“I highly recommend Curtis for tenure. He has been a valuable asset to our school and has made significant impact on the lives of students and staff,” Garzaniti wrote in the letter. The tenure was approved by the DOE. She also gave Williams the highest possible rating in his June 2024 performance review, the COIB report found.
City regulations and the City Charter explicitly prohibit school principals from having personal romantic relationships with staffers they supervise. The proper procedure would have required Garzaniti to disclose the relationship to her district superintendent, who would then have transferred either the principal or the staffer to a different school, according to former Deputy Chancellor Eric Nadelstern.
“You can not in any form of public service supervise a close relative, it’s just not permitted,” Nadelstern said.
The arrangement came to light after a complaint was filed, prompting Williams’s transfer to the High School for Law, Advocacy and Community Justice, located in the same building as his previous assignment. The move did not remove him from the facility where Garzaniti continued to work.
CUNY Graduate Center education law and policy Professor David Bloomfield criticized the tenure grant as particularly damaging to the integrity of the system. “Tenure tainted by personal relationships demeans those actually deserving and should be met with the harshest possible consequences,” he said.
The COIB report was first brought to wider attention by journalist Susan Edelman on her Substack. Garzaniti, Williams and the Department of Education did not respond to requests for comment on the findings.
The case adds to ongoing scrutiny of how New City school administrators navigate personal relationships within their buildings, with critics arguing that financial penalties alone may not deter future violations.