Patricia Albrecht died of gallbladder cancer in December 2006. The former Los Angeles Unified School District cafeteria worker's next paycheck arrived several months later and paychecks kept coming until this January.
"I thought it was pretty ironic. . . . I never thought I'd have to pay my mom's taxes after she passed," said her daughter, Jennifer Albrecht, who faxed her mother's death certificate to L.A. Unified last spring in the hope that she could return the money. She said she has yet to hear from anyone.
Albrecht's problem illustrates the continuing difficulties that employees are having with the district's payroll system. Part of a $95-million technology upgrade, the system launched in January 2007 is riddled with glitches. Thousands of teachers and other workers were paid the wrong amount or not at all. The teachers union sued the district in April over the problems.
Los Angeles Unified officials insist that the problems are largely fixed, and the union and district settled the lawsuit earlier this month. "I think we can say this crisis related to [payroll] is over," said David Holmquist, the district's chief operating officer, at a meeting this week.
The district has secured an additional $35 million to help resolve the problems.
Yet Albrecht's daughter and many district employees say they are still having problems, including W-2 forms that don't match year-end pay statements and an unresponsive trouble-shooting team.
District officials said that they've issued about 3,300 corrected W-2s and that there are 134 cases that still need to be resolved. Those cases should be settled before the April 15 tax deadline, Holmquist said. The district has issued about 120,000 W-2s.
But union officials, teachers and other employees are far from convinced that the problem has been solved. At a recent United Teachers Los Angeles meeting in Koreatown, about 50 teachers and workers lined up to complain about their payroll woes to state and federal tax officials, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks) and state Controller John Chiang.
"I'm not here to discuss with you whose fault it is. I think you already know," Sherman said.
Most of the complaints were similar, with teachers saying their tax forms didn't match their year-end pay stubs.
District officials have told employees that they should use their W-2s as their year-end statements but, given past problems, many teachers said they don't trust the district.
