Schools in Atlanta Billing Workers

A number of public schools in Atlanta are asking just about 134 educators to repay some of the salary that they received last year. The reason is because the district has realized they actually overpaid some of these educators by mistake.

The district overpaid educators for a total of $234,000. The educators that were overpaid include a number of teachers and principals. These employees were given two options. The first option is to have the amount of money owed deducted from paychecks from the month of March through August. The other option would be to pay the repayment in a lump sum by or before March 5^th. On average, repayment will cost each individual $1,700.

E. Vincent Martinez, a fashion designing teacher for Grady High School, owes $1,286 and is definitely not happy about it. Martinez says, “It is a slap in the face.”

The educators are all paid with a salary scale, basing the income on the amount of experience along with the level of education that the educator has completed. Some of these educators, unfortunately, were put onto the wrong salary scale, thus resulting in overpayments.

Martinez first joined APS back in 2002 and at this time, the new teachers were receiving a higher salary. However, at the beginning of 2011, Martinez was notified by human resources that he was, in fact, being overpaid. Apparently, the incentive in which Martinez was paid more for joining APS in 2002 was completed in 2005 but the district did not adjust his salary for another six years.

When this school year began, Martinez notices his pay was reduced and he is now receiving about $100 less each paycheck than he did before. The district also expects Martinez to pay back the overpayments that took place during the school year of 2010 through 2011.

Martinez said he is insulted, especially since APS is still paying out money to more than 100 educators who have been placed on paid leave after a cheating investigation was announced.

Keith Bromery, the Atlanta Public Schools spokesperson, has said that there are a couple of reasons for the overpayments that took place. Bromery says that for some educators, the salary information that was recorded for employees when they first received employment was wrong. However, there have also been some errors with the calculations of many of the salaries.

Bromery says, “The district is putting in place system upgrades and process procedures to reduce the risk for reoccurrences of this type of situation.”

However, this is not the first time there have been problems with the district and its payroll. In 2007, it was reported that the district made nearly $600,000 worth of payroll errors and that more than seven employees were being overpaid.