Resistance is building to TUSD's plan to collect more than $700,000 from its employees for an accounting error in health-care coverage.
The president of the district's blue-collar union has sent Superintendent Roger Pfeuffer and TUSD's Governing Board members a brief e-mail demanding a clear, step-by-step explanation of the mistake as well as a list of how much money is owed by each employee and to what insurance provider.
"As you have no credibility left with blue-collar employees, we are reluctant to take your word for it that we owe you anything," wrote Bruce Slabaugh, president of AFSCME Local 449, which represents 450 Tucson Unified School District employees. "Any attempt to deduct or garnish wages from blue-collar employees without this complete and comprehensive explanation will result in AFSCME taking any and all steps necessary to protect our members."
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Slabaugh later explained in an interview that his union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, would take legal action to halt wage deductions.
"When people signed up for insurance, they signed up for a specific cost," he said. "Everybody agreed to that. That's a contract. You can't go back on that."
The e-mail also was sent to Bobby Johnson, TUSD's executive director of education-support services, and the heads of two other employee unions, the Tucson Education Association, which represents teachers, and Communication Workers of America Local 7000, which represents 330 TUSD employees.
"I want employees to be able to go down there and have someone in benefits explain explicitly why they owe the district money," Slabaugh said.
Other than Slabaugh's letter, district officials have not received such requests, Johnson said, but the information is available.
Since May, when TUSD first approached the employee unions about finding a solution to the matter, leaders of the three unions have been asking for a concise, written explanation of the error along with official documentation.
The accounting error was publicly revealed in late May. It occurred during the 2004-05 school year, after TUSD switched from a 12-month benefits program to a fifteen-month program, extending paycheck deductions from 20 to 22.
A memo to Pfeuffer and Johnson shows a total of $750,081.60 is owed for health, dental, vision, cancer and life-insurance coverage.
Between 4,500 and 4,800 employees will be charged, according to internal memos obtained by the Arizona Daily Star. About 4,100 employees owe less than $99; around 500 owe more than $450, according to district e-mails. On Monday, TUSD mailed letters to employees notifying them of how much money they owe. The letter suggests four payment options.
Slabaugh received his letter this week.
"It says I owe $13.30. It doesn't say why I owed $13.30 or what vendors I owe it to. That's unacceptable," he said. "Don't get me wrong, $13.30 isn't bad. There are people who owe $600, but we need to know why and for what."
The union letter isn't the only fallout from the error.
During a special Governing Board meeting Tuesday, Pfeuffer revealed administrators are considering moving payroll and benefits out of the Human Resources Department and into Financial Services. A proposed re-organization chart of TUSD administration included an audit committee that reports to TUSD's governing board.
And last week, during the regularly scheduled monthly TUSD board meeting, two board members independently called for the creation of a auditing mechanism.
Member Alex Rodriguez asked for the creation of a board audit committee. He invited Corey Arvizu, from TUSD's outside accountant, Heinfeld, Meech and Co., to give the board an overview of such a committee. Board President Joel Ireland recommended a decision on the committee be postponed until Rodriguez could flesh out the idea and return with more details, including the cost of the task.
Bruce Burke asked to discuss creating a department- and program-audit mechanism as well, though the discussion will be at the next board meeting.
Both Burke and Rodriguez said recent financial scandals overshadowed student academic achievement in the past few months.
The calls for an audit were the result of the accounting error as well as an error in tax withholding.
In late February, administrators discovered that about 2,180 employees had insufficient tax deductions withheld from their checks.
Both errors, coupled with Pfeuffer's disputed public explanation that the Governing Board ordered him to collect the money from employees, prompted a fiery letter last Thursday from board member Judy Burns calling for Pfeuffer's resignation.
Like Burns, AFSCME's Slabaugh is angered that TUSD employees are being asked to pay for an error that many were oblivious to and is concerned that the general public might think employees took advantage of the accounting mistake.
"This is not a situation of a bunch of greedy employees who knew they were taking something for nothing. We were just as surprised as anybody else," Slabaugh said. "If the public wants to point fingers, it shouldn't be at the employees."
The details
Read the May 9 letter to TUSD union leaders, this week's letter to TUSD employees and a TUSD memo breaking down how much money is owed per provider by downloading this PDF.
