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Schools Audit Reveals Pay Errors

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By RONNIE BLAIR

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 6, 2008

LAND O' LAKES - The Pasco County School District is working out a plan to set things right after an audit showed 43 employees have either been paid too much or too little.

Some of the errors date back to the 1980s.

The amount overpaid to 17 employees was $120,398. The amount underpaid to 26 employees was $143,866. The district has about 10,000 employees.

In most cases, the mistakes happened because employees were given credit for too much or too little experience when they were hired or moved to a different position.

One teacher hired in the 1985-86 school year owes the district the largest individual amount - $21,650.

Meanwhile, the largest amount the school district underpaid an employee was $17,080. That was for a teacher hired in the 1998-99 school year.

A tentative plan to fix the problem would favor employees in both instances.

Superintendent Heather Fiorentino has recommended the school district work out a memorandum of understanding with United School Employees of Pasco that would allow any employee who was underpaid to be reimbursed the full amount. Employees who owe the district money, though, would repay only what they were overpaid for the 2006-07 and 2007-08 school years.

That agreement wouldn't apply to future instances where employees learn they have been paid too much or too little.

The school board would have to approve the deal once Fiorentino and the union reach an agreement.

Board vice chairman Frank Parker and board member Allen Altman expressed willingness at a board meeting Tuesday to let Fiorentino proceed.
Board member Marge Whaley said she thought the board should meet in closed session to discuss the situation because it involves a bargaining issue with the union.

The board plans to meet in a closed session at 3 p.m. Thursday.
Board attorney Dennis Alfonso said the problem with overpayment and underpayments is common statewide.

"A lot of districts have been grappling with what to do," he told the board at a meeting Tuesday morning.

State law doesn't offer much clarity on how to handle the situation, so a memorandum of understanding with the union is prudent, Alfonso said.

Finding a fair way to fix the problem is somewhat exacerbated because teachers have one contract with the district and other school employees have a different contract. The contracts set different rules for handling overpayments and underpayments.

The contract for school-related personnel - employees such as bus drivers, cafeteria workers and custodians - places a two-year limit on what is owed to the employee and what the employee must pay back to the school district.

The teachers' contract puts no time limitation on either situation, so a teacher would have to pay the full amount owed the district and the district would have to pay the full amount owed to the teacher.

There's an additional caveat, said Lynne Webb, president of United School Employees of Pasco. The language in those contracts was intended to deal with individual situations, not something with the scope of the audit that looked at all 10,000 school district employees for the entire length of their employment, she said.

Webb said that even though the teachers' contract provided no limit, she's not aware of any teacher who has ever had to repay more than two years worth of overpayments.

Fiorentino said that because the pay mistakes were on the district's part, she believes the fair thing to do is to treat all the employees the same, in this case drawing the language from each contract that most benefits the employees.

If the 17 overpaid employees are on the hook for two years only, then the total amount they owe to the school district would drop to $23,242.54. The teacher who owes $21,650 would pay $1,719.

Reporter Ronnie Blair can be reached at (813) 948-4218 or rblair@tampatrib.com.

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