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By JEFFREY S. SOLOCHEK, Times Staff WriterThe federal Department of Labor said the withholding policy dropped employees' pay below minimum wage.
TAMPA - About 5,000 Hillsborough school district employees will see a boost in their paychecks next week thanks to the federal government.
But it's not a raise.
The money already belonged to the workers - mostly aides, bus drivers and other noninstructional staff - but was held back by the district. The U.S. Department of Labor, acting on a complaint, ordered that the money be returned because the withholding caused the employees' pay rate to dip below minimum wage, or $5.15 an hour.
"We're sending them a reimbursement," said Dan Valdez, Hillsborough's deputy superintendent for human relations.
Employees whose pay came out above the minimum wage but less than the state rate of $6.15 per hour - about half of the total group - also will get reimbursed.
Valdez said the money the district held back - as much as 45 percent of two paychecks for some staff members - was intended to ensure that all workers would get paid even when they don't work over the two-week winter vacation. By giving the money back now, it won't be available for their Jan. 6 check.
Instead of being worth nine days of salary, those checks could be as low as two days' pay.
"It's going to present a problem," said Richard Martinez, the district's chief employee contract negotiator.
Martinez and Valdez said the district will have to review its pay procedures and find a better way to equalize all employees' paychecks.
"It's something that has to be corrected for next year," Martinez said.
Virginia Pemberton, a special education aide at Plant City High School, agrees the system needs an overhaul. And she's not one of the workers who will get escrowed money back. After 18 years in the system, her adjusted pay rate came out to about $7.80 an hour - above minimum wage.
She understood that the district would hold a portion of each paycheck to even out the amount employees receive biweekly. But it was not clear, she said, that the district would take out 35 percent to 45 percent of the first few checks, on top of deductions for insurance and other payments.
"They stated they were going to take 10 percent out of this check" when deductions began, said Pemberton, 47.
With such a large portion removed, she took home a little more than $200 for two weeks of work.
"I was devastated," she said. "I'm a single mom trying to get my oldest daughter, who is 23, through school and get all my bills paid."
She wound up with multiple past-due notices on her utilities, and a three-day notice to pay her rent or be evicted. Pemberton had to ask her mother for assistance and also found a second job, working weekends at Wal-Mart.
"I am so flabbergasted," she said. "We did not have a problem last year."
Leaders of the district's two employee unions said they haven't received many complaints about the pay procedure, and they tried to educate everyone about it.
Still, "a number of employees did not realize 35 percent would be coming out of their third paycheck at the same time that regular deductions began," said Yvonne Lyons, executive director of the Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association. Perhaps the biggest problem is that the amount in escrow now appears on everyone's pay stub, said Louis Orihuela, executive director of the Hillsborough School Employees Federation.
Though many workers were pleased to know the money was there for later, he said, "there are people concerned that they don't want their money withheld."
Valdez said he expects to convene a committee to look into the pay equalization process, with an eye toward change. Pemberton, the Plant City High aide, said she is consulting a lawyer to see if the district can legally do what it's doing. In the meantime, Pemberton said, she's going back to college with the hope of finding a better paying job.
Jeffrey S. Solochek can be reached at 813 269-5304 or solochek@sptimes.com