The Windham Northeast Supervisory Union School Board will hire a lawyer to depose their own employees after a slew of complaints about inaccurate payroll.
The board voted unanimously Wednesday night to hire the Burlington-based firm Lynn, Lynn, Blackman & Manitsky to depose current and former business office staff after numerous teachers said their paychecks were incorrect.
“We still don’t have a clear understanding of the breakdowns in the office,” board Chair David Clark said. “We are getting conflicting information. We want to put people under oath and depose them.”
Clark said the attorneys will question employees at their own discretion.
“We’ll decide if there’s any criminal intent involved in any of the actions which have taken place that have led to the fiasco we’re dealing with right now,” Clark said. “If criminal intent were discovered, this board would likely direct the superintendent of schools to direct it to the state’s attorney.”
There are about 358 teachers and staff members in the district, which includes the towns of Westminster, Athens, Rockingham and Grafton.
Teachers and staff began complaining in November that their paychecks were inaccurate. Some said money that was supposed to be taken out of their paychecks and transferred into health care and retirement accounts was never transferred. Money that was supposed to be deposited into TD Ameritrade investment accounts was also never deposited over a five-month period last fall.
Business office staff have blamed the new state-mandated accounting software, eFinancePLUS, which the school district started using 18 months ago, for the problems. All school districts in the state are required to use the software by 2023.
Some said pay issues became more prevalent after payroll clerk Ronda Williams was fired on Nov. 11, after 11 years.
Superintendent Chris Pratt, who called Williams a “hard worker,” declined to say why Williams was terminated.
Williams said she was let go after she was questioned about payroll taking so long. The new eFinance software was “painfully slow” and causing delays, she said.
“The software really wasn’t ready to be a financial software,” Williams said following the Wednesday night meeting.
But board members said there were payroll issues before Williams was fired.
Her attorney sent a demand letter to the board for wrongful termination on Jan. 21. Just after receiving the letter, the superintendent requested an outside party to conduct a report on the business office. The Feb. 19 report from School Operations Solutions found nine years of payroll information in the Windham Northeast Supervisory Union was missing.
“Computer files after 2010 did not seem to be accessible or exist,” the report said.
After Williams left in the fall, payroll-related checks dated from August were also found in a desk drawer, the report said, which could have caused benefit or compensation delays, according to the report.
Pratt said Williams also tried to access TD Ameritrade accounts for employees in the district after she was fired.
“That’s one thing we need to get into and get legal to explore,” Pratt said. “There were so many unanswered questions. We’re not going on assumption or heresay. To me it’s about getting the facts.”
The report highlighted a lack of cross-training in the office. Williams was the only person in the business office who knew how to do payroll.
Williams also worked significantly more hours than any other business office staff member. The business office accumulated about 1,300 hours of overtime in 18 months. Of that, Williams worked a total of 1,100 overtime hours, amounting to about $32,000.
“Ronda took no days off, Ronda took no vacation,” Clark, the board chair, said. “Why Ronda needed that time to get her work done is an open question.”
Pratt said the business office hasn’t been able to access Williams’ computer since she was fired.
“She took the passwords with her,” Pratt said.
But Williams said no one in the business office has asked her for her passwords or any other information since she was let go. Williams said she was unsure why there was missing payroll information and why checks were in a drawer.
Williams has been continuously praised by employees. Staff members and teachers gave her a standing ovation at a January public hearing and praised her for her dedication. Williams said she regularly worked weekends and late nights trying to sort through software challenges.
“I still very much care about the staff,” Williams said.
The Feb. 19 report, which reviewed software, staffing and basic procedures in the supervisory union’s business office, confirmed tasks take 10% to 20% longer with the new software.
The report also said the system wasn’t set up completely. Affordable Care Act parameters weren’t set up in any of the districts, for example.
“This would potentially cause issues related to health benefit eligibility,” according to the report.
Despite the software system being slow, the report didn’t mention if the software caused inaccuracies in payroll.
Clark, the board chair, said the attorneys from Lynn, Lynn, Blackman & Manitsky will start deposing employees as soon as possible. Rates for the lawyers reach as high as $225 an hour.
“This is way over my pay grade,” Clark said. “I only get paid 500 bucks (a year) for this BS.”
Meanwhile, business office personnel have told staff members that payroll issues have been resolved.
Pratt said at the Wednesday night board meeting that those with TD Ameritrade accounts have received money they were owed. He said employees were paid earlier this week with interest they lost over the past five months — accumulating to $719 for 103 employees.
Pratt became the superintendent in 2018. He said there’s been a lack of communication between the current staff in the business office and him since he took over.
“I inherited these issues,” he said. “I will solve them.”
But Jessica Auckman, a paraeducator who sits on the grievance committee, said payroll issues are still prevalent, despite business office staff claiming there are no more problems.
“Right now the trust from the employees is so low that anything they say we immediately don’t believe them,” she said.
Five people had inaccurate checks following the Feb. 14 payroll. For some, health care was deducted twice. One employee who was supposed to be paid Feb. 14 didn’t get a corrected check until Feb. 19, Auckman said.
“That’s a problem when you’re expecting a paycheck on Friday,” Auckman said.
“Part of the problem is we’re just told that the problems are fixed, but that’s not what we’re seeing,” Auckman said. “We keep getting emails saying people’s W-2s are wrong.”
Sean Murphy, a math teacher at Bellows Falls Union High School, said a group of math teachers have personally calculated their W-2s, listing every paycheck they received on a spreadsheet and comparing it to their salary on the W-2. Murphy said his W-2 was correct.
“People are really paying attention now,” Murphy said.