Pasadena ISD officials have asked about 1,300 district employees to return additional pay they received during COVID-19 school closures due to a “major clerical error,” leading at least one staff member to file a lawsuit to keep what he was given.
Rather than give hourly employees working essential jobs during school closures the time-and-a-half pay Superintendent DeeAnn Powell originally promised in March, Pasadena ISD officials said the district inadvertently paid them two and a half times their regular pay.
In an interview Tuesday, Powell said because Pasadena ISD’s board only approved the time-and-a-half increase employees would have to pay back the wages above that.
She declined to say how much money was involved.
“It’s very sickening to me this even happened,” Powell said. “But at this time we don’t have a choice but to recoup this money.”
The issue of extra pay first was addressed in an email Powell sent to Pasadena ISD employees on March 24, hours before Harris County’s stay-home order went into effect. She wrote that hourly employees who reported to work in-person would receive premium pay for the time they physically were on campus. Employees earned those boosted wages from about March 24 through April 30.
Later that evening, Powell won the board’s approval for the premium pay and for her administration to continue paying regular wages to other employees — such as bus drivers — who could not work due to the pandemic. Powell said payroll staff and the director of payroll were all working from home when someone erred and paid the in-person employees more than the board allowed.
Powell said Pasadena ISD Chief Financial Officer, Carla Merka, was quarantined at the time after her husband was potentially exposed to the new coronavirus, but caught the mistake when she returned to work.
The overpayments were spread over three pay checks.
For attorney Leonid Kishinevsky’s client, who is referred to in a lawsuit as John Doe, that amounted to about $2,000 more than he would have made. Kishinevsky said his client already spent that money on housing, food and other expenses, and filed the lawsuit in order to keep those funds. He is not seeking damages, other than attorney fees.
Powell said the district had not yet been served with the lawsuit and added she wished the employee had contacted someone within her administration or payroll so they could come up with an individualized solution.
Kishinevsky said he did not think the accounting error was intentional, but does not think the district legally can ask for the money back.
“Regardless of what the reason was, somebody on their side made a significant mistake,” Kishinevsky said. “Employees who risked their health to perform essential jobs shouldn’t be the ones to pay for it.”
In a letter to affected employees, CFO Merka wrote on May 19 that because the extra amount was not board-approved, it could be considered a “gift of public funds” and, thus, illegal under the Texas Constitution.
shelby.webb@chron.com
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