UTLA settles suit over payroll snafu

The teachers union has settled a lawsuit with Los Angeles school officials over a malfunctioning payroll system that overpaid or shortchanged teachers for much of last year.

The settlement will provide teachers who were underpaid 8% interest for up to six months on late payments. Teachers also will face no discipline for having boycotted staff meetings to protest payroll problems.

As part of the settlement, the Los Angeles Unified School District also will drop a separate unfair labor practice charge filed in response to the United Teachers Los Angeles-backed boycotts.

The school board approved the settlement after a discussion in closed session Tuesday.

“We appreciate that UTLA absolutely assisted in helping us deal with the issues of their membership,” said school board President Monica Garcia. “The fact that the boycotts will stop will help our school sites regain their regular conversation. Principals had figured out how to get the work done, but now we can go back to the routine way of doing school business.”

The union filed the lawsuit in April, in mid-crisis, seeking timely paychecks issued in the correct amounts, comprehensible pay statements and emergency pay centers, among other demands. The lawsuit described the bureaucratic dystopia of the time.

“When employees realize their paychecks are inadequate, they spend hours of time on the phone with district personnel waiting to speak to someone to report their payroll issue, and often do not receive return calls or are redirected to the wrong person,” court papers said. “Recently, the district has informed employees that phone calls will not be returned and employees must send a letter via facsimile instead of calling.”

The payroll system was part of a $95-million technology upgrade. But as soon as it was launched in January 2007, problems began. Thousands of teachers received incorrect paychecks, and many still are dealing with tax and pension issues. The district set up emergency centers and its staff worked long hours to try to deal with the wage problems. The district hired so many consultants to help fix the system that the cost of that became an issue as well.

The lawsuit, which was dismissed by the trial court, was neither successful nor helpful, former L.A. Unified general counsel Kevin Reed said in a recent interview.

“It was thrown out at the opening bell,” he said. “And it put us on a war footing with teachers when what we really needed was cooperation, communication and understanding.”

The lawsuit remained alive when UTLA appealed, and it was cited as a valuable pressure tactic by UTLA President A.J. Duffy in his recent successful reelection campaign. So were the scattered faculty boycotts of school meetings, which were characterized by district officials as harming schools’ academic programs.

“It was all part of a bigger strategy to get the district to get serious about fixing the payroll,” Duffy said Wednesday.

The school district filed an unfair labor practice over the matter in January, which the settlement now renders moot.

“More than anything, cooler heads have prevailed,” Duffy said. “And this is a basis that we can build on and move ahead together.”

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howard.blume@latimes.com