Payroll Mistakes Still Plague Polk Schools

LAKELAND | Payroll errors are still nagging Polk County schools.

Seven additional mistakes, including an $11,005 overpayment to an employee, have recently been found and are connected to 86 previous payroll errors that have been widely reported.

The newly found blunders require the district to forgive $5,943 it overpaid employees, according to school district records.

Three mistakes were discovered two years or less from the time the errors were made, which means those employees are required to repay 67 percent of the amount they were overpaid, and their salaries will be adjusted to the correct rate.

In all, the district is now owed $9,292, including $7,373 by Lisa Garcia, the employee overpaid $11,005, the records show.

The remaining four new mistakes all were under $1,000.

For months, district officials bickered with the Polk Education Association, the teacher's union, over whether 86 Polk County school employees who were overpaid a total of about $110,000 because of school district errors should be required to repay the money.

Eventually, the two sides settled on a plan that uses a sliding scale to decide how much, if any, money would have to be repaid.

Basically, the more time that has elapsed since the mistake was made, the less has to be repaid.

An agreement reached in May required 39 of the 86 employees to repay the money they were overpaid and their salaries were adjusted to the correct, lower pay rate.

The remaining 47 employees were not required to repay the district.

For 40 of those employees, the errors were discovered from two to six years after they were made, and they had their salaries adjusted, but didn't have to repay any money.

For seven employees the mistakes were discovered more than six years after they were made, and they kept their salary and didn't have to repay any money.

The payroll errors were made by the district when it miscalculated how much experience the employees had, which affected where they should be placed inthe district's pay schedule.

After an audit, dozens of employees - teachers, secretaries and paraprofessionals - learned they were being paid too much, sometimes for several years.

The audit also revealed 38 employees were underpaid $80,936.

At a School Board meeting earlier this week, Ron Ciranna, assistant superintendent of human resources, assured board members that a new system of checks and balances will prevent the high number of mistakes from occurring again.

When School Board member Brenda Reddout asked the status of the employee who made the mistake, Ciranna said the employee was no longer in the same position.

In the future, Reddout said she hopes the mistakes can be caught within a six-month period.

[ John Chambliss can be reached at john.chambliss@theledger.com or 863-802-7588. ]