City Controller Audit Finds School District Hasn't Paid $6M To Former Employees
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The Philadelphia City Controller's audit of the school district turned up some $6 million in payments that haven't been made to former employees, and the district blames the financial straits of the last few years.
The controller found that some 2,300 employees who left the district over the last five years did not receive payments guaranteed by their contracts.
The District's Chief Financial Officer Uri Monson says that's because of a combination of conditions created by the 2012 budget crisis.
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"That created a huge number of people separating who needed termination payments at the same time the central office, so payroll, was cut by 50 percent so you quadrupled the amount of work and halfed the staff doing it, he said.
He says, just as the schools are now recovering and rehiring, so is the central office.
"We have identified and approved funding for four additional positions in payroll to work on both clearing out the backlog and assuring we can continue to do timely termination payments," he said.
Monson says that should also help with other problems the controller found with payroll deductions and processing.