School payroll woes linger

Patricia Albrecht died of gallbladder cancer in December 2006. The former Los Angeles Unified School District cafeteria worker’s next paycheck arrived several months later and paychecks kept coming until this January.

“I thought it was pretty ironic. . . . I never thought I’d have to pay my mom’s taxes after she passed,” said her daughter, Jennifer Albrecht, who faxed her mother’s death certificate to L.A. Unified last spring in the hope that she could return the money. She said she has yet to hear from anyone.

Albrecht’s problem illustrates the continuing difficulties that employees are having with the district’s payroll system. Part of a $95-million technology upgrade, the system launched in January 2007 is riddled with glitches. Thousands of teachers and other workers were paid the wrong amount or not at all. The teachers union sued the district in April over the problems.

Los Angeles Unified officials insist that the problems are largely fixed, and the union and district settled the lawsuit earlier this month. “I think we can say this crisis related to [payroll] is over,” said David Holmquist, the district’s chief operating officer, at a meeting this week.

The district has secured an additional $35 million to help resolve the problems.

Yet Albrecht’s daughter and many district employees say they are still having problems, including W-2 forms that don’t match year-end pay statements and an unresponsive trouble-shooting team.

District officials said that they’ve issued about 3,300 corrected W-2s and that there are 134 cases that still need to be resolved. Those cases should be settled before the April 15 tax deadline, Holmquist said. The district has issued about 120,000 W-2s.

But union officials, teachers and other employees are far from convinced that the problem has been solved. At a recent United Teachers Los Angeles meeting in Koreatown, about 50 teachers and workers lined up to complain about their payroll woes to state and federal tax officials, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks) and state Controller John Chiang.

“I’m not here to discuss with you whose fault it is. I think you already know,” Sherman said.

Most of the complaints were similar, with teachers saying their tax forms didn’t match their year-end pay stubs.

District officials have told employees that they should use their W-2s as their year-end statements but, given past problems, many teachers said they don’t trust the district.

Magnolia Avenue Elementary School teacher Marcia Liebman, a 28-year-veteran, reviewed her paychecks for the last year and realized that there was almost a $30,000 difference between her pay of nearly $90,000 and her W-2, which listed $58,000.

“The last thing I want is to get audited,” she said.

Liebman contacted the district. But when she received her revised W-2 this week the information was still incorrect, she said.

Union officials said that’s a common complaint. “Our biggest issue with this has been the district’s inability to follow through,” said David Goldberg, UTLA’s treasurer.

Holmquist said he wasn’t aware of anyone being “ignored” by the district, but at this week’s meeting with board members he acknowledged that “we need to have increased customer satisfaction.”

When Bancroft Middle School teacher Martha Smithwick realized that she’d been overpaid, she made an appointment with a Los Angeles school district “recoupment” representative to determine how much money she needed to return to L.A. Unified.

After bringing her accountant to the district’s downtown headquarters on a Saturday in December and waiting an hour for her meeting, Smithwick agreed to repay almost $3,300 by having the amount taken out of future paychecks. The district also offered her an interest-free loan to ease any financial burden the sudden repayment might cause.

The recoupment officer told Smithwick she would get a phone call to fill out the loan paperwork, but, Smithwick said, nobody contacted her. She was also reassured that her W-2 would reflect the change.

And when Smithwick received her W-2 in late January, her tax document still showed the wrong amount. Her efforts to contact district officials to fix the problem were unsuccessful, Smithwick said, until she got a letter this week from the district’s Accounting and Disbursements Division.

The letter acknowledged that Smithwick applied for a loan, but “unfortunately, we were not able to complete the process in time to get this settled in calendar year 2007.”

The letter, dated March 3, also said Smithwick owed about $3,600, a $300 increase from the figure she agreed to in December. It asked her to sign a payroll deduction form and fax it to the district by March 14. Then, one paragraph later, the letter said: “If you do not return the form by March 10, 2008, then the district will consider your salary overpayment an open issue and take the next steps necessary to collect this amount from you.” The letter was signed “Payroll Services Branch.”

“I got the letter on March 11, so I’m beyond frustrated,” Smithwick said.

Some teachers have given up resolving their tax issues. Joe Lardner retired from teaching at Van Nuys Community Adult School in April 2007 after 20 years with the district. Shortly afterward, the district said he owed almost $6,000.

Apparently, Lardner’s retirement date was incorrectly entered into the new payroll system, which resulted in his continuing to receive checks after he stopped working, he said.

Lardner had a series of meetings with the district and eventually wrote a check to L.A. Unified for about $5,000 even though he believes the district still owes him several hundred dollars in pay.

Lardner estimates he has spent about 10 days trying to resolve his payroll problems. Still, he doesn’t think the money is worth the effort, particularly because he believes the district owes him a nearly $4,000 bonus from a program that rewarded employees who had superior attendance, which saved the district from having to pay substitute teachers.

Lardner also dropped his plans to be a substitute teacher after he retired. “I finally decided this organization isn’t worth it. They put me through too many hoops,” he said.

As for Jennifer Albrecht, she said she was shocked when her mother died suddenly and that continuing to get the paychecks was a nuisance and a painful reminder. “It doesn’t make moving on any easier,” she said.

Albrecht, who works at Roscoe Elementary School in Sun Valley, said her mother has earned more than $5,000 since her death, showing several pay stubs.

Albrecht never had any payroll issues with the district herself. She has been keeping her mother’s paychecks in a separate account and has contacted Los Angeles Unified several times. “Anytime they want the money, they can have it back,” she said.

Holmquist was unaware of Albrecht’s situation but said it is possible in rare instances for the district to continue to issue paychecks to deceased employees. He said the district is planning an audit to find such incidents in the future.

But Albrecht is mystified how her mother could continue to get paid after she died. “Who,” she asked, “signed the time sheet?”

--

jason.song@latimes.com