Miami Herald: Broward school analysts to get back pay for additional work
Nov 24, 2009
Miami Herald–November 23, 2009
By PATRICIA MAZZEI
The Broward school district should not have made eight employees take on additional work outside their job descriptions without paying them for it, an arbitrator ruled last week.
Now the district must pay the eight customer service analysts more than a year’s worth of back pay plus legal fees — and promote them, if it intends to keep them performing their existing duties, according to the decision.
The Broward Teachers Union says the price tag amounts to about $250,000.
The employees, represented by the union, had argued they were doing more than just presenting materials to train employees on the district’s payroll system, as their positions required.
The analysts were also creating materials, updating old information and monitoring the effectiveness of the training — tasks higher-paid employees should be doing, the decision says.
“While the School Board has attempted to minimize or even trivialize the role that the grievants played in performing these tasks, it is nonetheless evident that these responsibilities were neither minor nor occasional,” arbitrator Stanley H. Sergent wrote in the Nov. 18 decision.