Payroll scheme lawsuit on hold

Attorney for 2 school workers claims more violations found

NORWALK — A classaction lawsuit filed on behalf of two city public school employees who alleged the district engaged in a payroll scheme has been withdrawn.

“We talked to more employees and we discovered more violations,” New York Citybased attorney Ryan Daugherty said. “Due to new information, we decided to withdraw the complaint for now.”

Daugherty is representing Hope Coles, an administrative secretary and president of the union representing nonexempt staff, and Sadiya DeIrish, an office assistant, who claim they and other hourly employees were cheated out of “countless hours.”

Administrative secretaries throughout the district were instructed to alter timecards so fulltime employees would not exceed 37.5 hours per week and parttime employees would not exceed 29 hours, according to suit, filed July 26 in Stamford Superior Court.

Norwalk Deputy Corporation Counsel Jeffrey Spahr said Tuesday the withdrawal, following the city’s Aug. 8 motion to dismiss, “is clearly an admission on their part that their claims are not legally valid.”

The lawsuit was withdrawn Friday.

“Let’s make this point perfectly clear, no one is saying that

“In terms of employees working more time, the law is very clear that an employee must be compensated for time worked.”

Ryan Daugherty, attorney representing two Norwalk public school employees

they cannot file a grievance over workplace conditions if they think that there has been a violation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement,” Spahr said. “We are just saying that the appropriate manner to raise such an issue is through the grievance procedure that is in the CBA. That is also what the law clearly states.”

There is no provision in the CBA that mandates arbitration, Daugherty countered.

According to the complaint, Coles and other administrative secretaries in the district are tasked with inputting staff attendance on NOVAtime, the district’s payroll software.

At a training, administrative secretaries were allegedly instructed to alter the timecards of their coworkers to ensure fulltime staff don’t log enough hours to qualify for overtime pay and parttime staff don’t log enough hours to qualify for benefits.

During the last two years, the complaint estimates each administrative secretary in the district had been directed to alter the timecards of 10 to 15 employees per week. School employees in any of 18 roles — including paraeducators, secretaries and library media assistants — districtwide may have been affected by the plan, according to the complaint. Daugherty said after first filing, he’d interviewed dozens of affected employees.

Coles and DeIrish work at Ponus Ridge Middle School, according to Daugherty, and have been employees in the district since 2001 and 2017, respectively.

According got Spahr, there was a directive issued by Ponus Ridge Middle School Principal Damon Lewis in winter 2016, advising staff to closely monitor their hours as a result of a budget overrun, which was attributed to unapproved overtime.

“Principal Lewis issued a Memo on Feb. 17, 2016 informing all of the staff (including Ms. Coles) that overtime would not be authorized,” Spahr wrote in an email. “They were informed that they must make sure that they punched out (and in) in a timely fashion. They were never instructed to work past their deadline and to fix the books to remove any overtime work justly earned.”

Daugherty’s comments were limited on Tuesday, but said he would be able to speak about the next steps in the coming days.

“In terms of employees working more time, the law is very clear that an employee must be compensated for time worked,” Daugherty said.