Teachers overpaid for three years

School district overpaid 44 teachers a total of $250,000 for three years

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Last month, the Rockville Centre School District learned that it had been overpaying nearly four dozen teachers for years, costing the district around $250,000.

The district is still investigating, but a total of 44 former and current teachers were overpaid for the past three years. Superintendent Dr. William Johnson said he first learned about the error on Sept. 9.

“Since we have auditing firms that could have picked it up and a number of controls, we don’t know how it happened,” Johnson said. “We just know it did. We can’t let something like this happen again.”

The mistake was discovered by a staff member in the business office after a query regarding the payroll status of some employees. The error began in the 2011-12 school year, but was corrected before the first paychecks went out for the current year.

Johnson said that the teachers would repay the money, though the details of how that will work will have to be negotiated with the Rockville Centre Teachers Association, the district’s teachers’ union. Viri Pettersen, president of the union, declined to comment.

“The teachers will repay,” Johnson said. “It has to be negotiated, but it will be recovered. We’re not allowed to overpay. If we do, we have an obligation to seek recovery.”

All of the teachers that were overpaid were or are senior faculty members.

“The Board of Education is deeply concerned about the error,” the board said in a statement to the Herald. “While it appears to have occurred through a mistaken execution of the collective bargaining agreement between the teachers’ union and the district, our legal counsel has been tasked by the Board to conduct a broad investigation, including confirmation that no laws were broken, which is our initial indication.”

The district’s attorneys are interviewing people who were responsible for interpreting the teachers’ contract and applying it to payroll.

“We are also concerned that this error was not discovered sooner by internal staff or those who provide external support to the district’s business function,” the school board’s statement continued. “A comprehensive review of these protocols is also under way.”

It is unclear whether there will be repercussions for the overpaid teachers other than having to make repayments. “I’m not sure they knew they were being overpaid,” Johnson said. “We’re going to have to wait and see on that.”

“This is an unfortunate situation, and we offer our apologies to our taxpayers,” the board statement read. “We pledge that all due diligence and urgency will be exercised in the recovery of the funds, along with implementing any necessary corrective actions.”