I just found out I was to receive a stipend from the State over 6 months ago. I emailed the district and was told nope that stipend doesn’t exist but it clearly does. The process for receiving the stipend was the state contacts the district, the district tells the state who (or how many teachers) were eligible, the state give the district the money who then gives it to me in the May 1, 2013 payroll.
I emailed the proof that the stipend exists to my district but assuming that they put their hands over their eyes and ignore me
Who do I sue? The state that ultimately is paying the money or the district for not doing their job to ensure I got my money? Or do I sue both and let the judge sort it out?
How would I calculate interest from the time I should of had the check?
Since I have provided the district with evidence directly from the Dept of Ed that I was owed the stipend. If they still refuse to pay would I be looking at punitive damages? If so, how do I decide how much?
I know the real answer is talk to an attorney in my jurisdiction. I simply want the answers to start the paperwork in small claims court (if necessary).
If you let me know what city/state you live in, I can point you to a Lawyer Referral Service. Most states and many cities have them. Typically, through this service you can pay a flat fee of $25-45 (depends on location) to speak for a lawyer about your issue for about a 1/2 hour. If you feel you want to retain the lawyer at this point, you draw up an agreement, but you are under no obligation to do that.
My mom had a landlord-tenant issue and for her the half-hour meet was enough for her to get key information about the law, angry-letter-wording advice, and proceed on her own (to triumph!) I have no idea if your sort of problem is one that can be resolved with a sternly worded letter though.
Having recently been to small claims court myself (successfully, I might add) my advice to you is TALK TO AN ATTORNEY IN YOUR JURISDICTION. The rules for small claims vary all over the place (I discovered there are even differences between counties in my state). Even if you don’t need/want to hire a lawyer to represent you, pay for 30 minutes or an hour of a lawyer’s time to go over the rules and potential pitfalls in your case.
How do you sue a state government? And, assuming it is a public school, you’re right back as trying to sue a public entity over an administrative mater.
Why can’t you (OP) file a complaint with the state agency that administers these funds? Also, have you talked to your state labor ?? (board?) about this as it might fall into the failure to pay wages that are due category. (like when an employer doesn’t pay overtime that’s due). Worst case, file the complaint with the State Attorney General (or your states version of it).
I’ve considered using attorneys on six occasions over various things, I have never paid for an initial consultation (not even $25/half hour). In the end, I did use them on 4 of the 6 times. In the other two times, the attorneys gave good advice and said that litigation would be more expensive than justified.
[nitpick] It’s “Should have had” not “Should of had”. The reason people get this wrong is it’s commonly abbreviated “Should’ve had” which is phonetically similar to “Should of had”. [/nitpick]
For Enkel: The state agency/person responsible is even less responsive than the district. She has no DID that I have found and I sent her an email about this over a week ago with no response. I may try the labor board but with the holidays coming up I’m kind of hoping to get the check now not in a year. The small claims/county court was to prod them into cutting the check as a “Holy crap!” moment when the superintendent and hr rep are served. In fact, I’m thinking of starting the process in county court and then if they don’t immediately settle, talk to an attorney (after talking to the state union).
For InternetLegend: I’m not a member of that union anymore since I changed districts and to be honest, that union was worthless. BUT I will check with the state union now that you’ve mentioned it.
Have you spoken with your peers? Does your district give the stipend to other teachers you work with and not you? If not, then I suspect you’re in a scenario where your school district is following some internal administrative rule that conflicts with the general state wide stipend policy.
You are not, despite what people have said in this thread, yet at the point where I think it wise to talk to an attorney. Further, if you’re in a situation where you’re fighting an administrative policy of the school district that’s not something that is likely to be resolved at all in small claims. You’re going to have to go to real court, and any attorney you talk to is going to need significant time to analyze the situation and come to an understanding about what is going on.
If it’s truly something where an entire district worth of teachers are not receiving a stipend and it’s improper, I imagine there will be an attorney very happy to represent not just you, but the rest of the teachers in your district as it could be lucrative for them. But at the same time if it’s a broad-reaching thing like that, a simple consult with an attorney probably serves no purpose and is not a wise step.
Instead I would make sure you’ve done all of these things before ever considering going to private counsel:
Does your District have some sort of Personnel or HR branch? I don’t mean your principal or your principal’s boss. I mean a separate organizational arm that handles HR matters. If so, have you spoken with them (on the phone)? If not, do so. They may actually explain that the law has exceptions and you are incorrect that the District lacks authority to decline to distribute stipends, or they may explain to you that hey, you should be getting the stipend and someone messed up somewhere in denying it to you.
You say the stipend is something the State says you should receive, have you tried actually finding and calling (not emailing) a contact at the State government who would be involved in this? You may even consider trying to schedule a meeting with someone and meet in person. State employees are very good at ignoring emails, but phone calls or in person confrontations are harder to ignore.
You say you are not in the union any longer because you switched districts. I don’t believe that should matter. The union may be all but worthless, but they almost certainly would be interested in teachers not receiving money they are supposed to receive. They will have lawyers who specialize in fighting this kind of thing. I won’t say they’ll have better lawyers than a good private firm, but they will have people who probably already know the exact wording of the law and policy involving stipends and most likely they probably have some idea why you aren’t receiving your stipend if you’re one of many teachers who is not receiving a stipend.
I’d do all of that before I spoke with an attorney, especially since if this is a district-wide policy I do not believe it can be at all resolved in small claims, and since any attorney not already familiar with the State and District level educational laws and policies will not be able to give you immediate feedback and will probably need to do considerable research to even understand the issue.
I was the only NBCT (National Board Certified Teacher) in my district and I did provide them of proof of that when hired. But that is not even the issue although I am alone in getting the stipend. The HR rep say that the district was not on the list for eligibility even though it clearly was (only teachers at low performing schools were eligible) and I sent in proof that my school was eligible. I still haven’t heard her response to the info I sent her. My next step will be to contact the HR Dept’s boss i.e. the superintendent.
As for the state agency, there is no direct-dial number and going through the phone tree has not helped due to the time on hold. I can go down tomorrow to Denver and deal with this in person with the person in charge of the program but considering I’m going on vacation to LV on Tuesday, I really want this to be dealt with at the district level as a “I’m sorry, my bad. And since we owed you this almost 7 months ago, we will (cut you a check/direct deposit) your stipend immediately.”
Get your ducks in a row and ask HR for a meeting. Your location says Denver. If you are indeed in Colorado, the list of eligible schools is here (link obtained from here). Print off both pages, take them in, and tell them you expect them to contact the board and issue you your stipend by the end of the year. Not sure if those links are current or a little outdated, it says 2012-2013 though.
If you aren’t in CO, I assume you can find your state’s documentation with a simple google search as I did. I don’t think you need to get an attorney yet, this is pretty cut-and-dry.
I just found out from the state that HR claimed I was not at an eligible school (even though I was) and the money went back to the state coffers last June. I emailed the HR rep and Superintendent and said that since I will be in Denver tomorrows anyway and their error cost me $4800, that I expect to hear from them by 10am to arrange a meeting to discuss it. If I didn’t hear from them, I would look for other avenue and would pursue interest, punitive damages, court fees, etc.
We’ll see where this goes but I will be going to County Court and not small claims since it will end up there anyways (so they can use their attorney) so I can ask for a lot more than the $10G in SCC (Right now I plan on the $4800 + 3x that in punitive + interest @ 10% + costs. I figure while the timetable is going with that, then I can involve the union.