Approximately 700 teachers in the William S. Hart Union High School District were overpaid due to a payroll system error, a district official said.
Teachers who worked extra hours were overpaid on July 3 due to a “human error” in the payroll processing system, which duplicated payments that had already been issued in April, Jon Carrino, district assistant superintendent of business services, said on Tuesday afternoon.
“This was just a human error on the payroll processing side, we’ve since identified what happened, and we’re implementing processes to make sure that doesn’t happen again,” he said, adding that the error was discovered a week after payments were issued.
Carrino could not provide information on the total amount the district overpaid teachers, but it differed for each individual staff member depending on the amount of hours they worked. The error did not impact normal salary paychecks but did impact teachers working extra hours, he added.
Staff impacted were notified immediately once the error was discovered to provide transparency on the issue, but due to summer break it was difficult to get a hold of everyone during their time off, Carrino said.
Since then, the district has been working with Los Angeles County and the Hart District Teachers Association to find a solution by which the district can recover the funds.
The district plans to deduct smaller overpayment amounts from teachers’ next paycheck, which is in September, Carrino said.
Teachers who were overpaid larger amounts will have the option to repay the funds over the next month or spread the deductions across up to four months, with repayments completed by the end of December, he added.
“We were trying to get it resolved before the end of the calendar year so it didn’t impact their 2025 taxes,” Carrino said. “Otherwise it might overstate their salary for the year and that would impact their tax filing for 2025.”
Carrino also said the district will be working with teachers who may be significantly impacted by the error and develop a plan that can help recover the funds but not affect them in a negative way.
“It’s definitely an error on our side,” he said. “We want to work with people in their unique situations if needed.”
