Soledad Unified School District staff members asked to return money

SOLEDAD, Calif. (KION-TV)- The Soledad Unified School District is asking employees to pay back some money they received saying they overpaid employees.

The Soledad Unified School District conducted an audit back in February 2021 and the district found that some of its staff members were overpaid. But some told KION that’s unfair.

“They're asking us to repay something that most of us don't have at this time,” said one staff member who didn’t want to be identified. “When inflation is the highest cost and living is so high, it's an insult to us. We demand the people accountable to pay for it.”

Some staff members at the Soledad Unified School District received a letter last week. Stating that during an audit, an overpayment was found.

Now some district staff is having to pay back three dollars while others are having to pay back around a thousand dollars.

“This falls first with Human Resources, who would’ve submitted the pay increase to payroll” the impacted staff members told KION. “After one year, after planning their budget it should’ve been caught.

KION reached out to the Soledad Unified School District about the notice to staff.

“This stemmed from an agreement on compensation in 2020. There were overpayments related to that,” said Supt. Randy Bangs with the Soledad Unified School District.

“Payroll mistakes that results in salary overpayments are public money and would be a gift of public funds if the district allowed the recipients to keep the funds.”

The staff member KION spoke with said paying back the money would impact her deeply.

“It would affect me a lot because I have bills to pay,” said the staff member. “I have a family to support. I have kids and I'm a single parent.”

The district said it understands employees will not be happy about paying the money, but it is taxpayer money.

“The district is offering flexible terms for repayment of the funds to avoid hardship on individual employees,” said Bangs. “Employees may be offered a reduction payment basis to offset taxes that the employee paid on overpaid funds.”

But what staff members want is more time.

“If they can give us more time to do our research, and if they are right, that we do owe that money then I’ll gladly pay it back,” said the district staff member. “But if we don't owe that money, why are we going to be held accountable in paying that money back?”

The Monterey County Office of Education said it helped the district with an analysis of a salary schedule for employees.

The letter sent to Soledad staff said if employees do not pay the amount back legal action could be taken.

KION asked the district about the legal consequences but the district would not comment.