Payroll Update September 2008
Victory
Labor Day, Admissions Day and 4th of July 2007 - Did you get paid for these holidays in 2007? Anyone who works the day before or the day after these holidays should get paid for the holiday. The District has performed an audit to check if people got paid for these holidays. Apparently, approximately 5,500 holidays were not paid. Checks to reimburse employees were mailed out around September 12, 2008. Anyone who did not get paid, and thinks that they should have, should contact their union representative ASAP. We are filing a grievance for a bus driver who only got paid his Z-time (6 hours) for Labor Day even though he is an 8 hour worker. Please contact Alicia Loncar at (213) 387-8393 x128 if this happened to you.
TAKE ACTION NOW
Vacation Cap As reported before, the District did not impose the vacation cap for the last two years. They wanted to make sure system defects would not impact vacation balances. The District wants to re-impose the vacation cap by January 1, 2009. Employees would keep the time they accrued but would not be able to accrue any more until the balance is below the cap. A final deadline has not been determined. However, anyone who is above the vacation cap limit should make sure to TAKE VACATION NOW. All the unions are pushing the District to change the deadline to at the very least July 1, 2008.
New Information/Updates
Labor Day 2008 - Double check your pay stub. Did you get paid for your base assignment for Labor Day? (Bus Drivers will be different, explained below.) Make sure you were paid all of your base hours for your regular assignment (not summer school or Z-time). If you didn’t, please contact your union representative ASAP. We are prepared to file a grievance for anyone who did not get paid for either the day or the correct number of hours.
Health Benefits - A letter was mistakenly sent out to substitutes informing them that their health benefits were cut off. The District reversed this decision and reimbursed employees for any out of pocket expenses. After fixing the problem, the District informed 322 people that they lost benefits due to lacking 800 hours. Where as, 1130 people got letters regarding gaining benefits, the new pay stubs now track the number of worked hours. Make sure to monitor this balance
Average Paid Time - Part-time employees (employees who work below 7 hours a day), who on average worked more than 50 minutes in the prior quarter, will soon be paid their benefit time (illness, holiday or vacation) based upon this average. So, if a 6 hour Special Education Assistant worked on average 7 hours in the last quarter (Nov-Jan), they will be paid 7 hours when they are ill, take a vacation or receive holiday pay. The District is just now implementing this requirement. In September 2008, Bus Drivers started receiving this adjusted benefit time. All other classifications are expected to receive their adjusted time in December.
Pay Stubs – Employees paid semi-monthly will be the first to receive the new pay stubs. Those paid monthly will receive their new pay stub at the end of August.
Paid every two weeks – Thanks goes out to everyone who faxed, called and sent in petitions/ votes regarding getting paid every two weeks. The overwhelming majority of the members indicated that they wanted to get paid every two weeks. This issue will have to be negotiated during the upcoming contract. The District has indicated that they want to move to paying people every two weeks.
