Bellevue Union School District suing former employee, board candidate over wages

One of the poorest school districts in Sonoma County is suing a former school board candidate, arguing it needs to recoup $5,000 in taxpayer money the candidate was allegedly overpaid in her former job as a clerk.

The Bellevue Union School District says former payroll clerk Adele Walker, who narrowly lost a bid for a school board seat in November, was overpaid more than $6,800 over a 10-month period, even though the previous superintendent personally approved her wages.

Walker, meanwhile, says she was actually underpaid thousands of dollars in uncompensated overtime while working from home or on weekends before she resigned in May.

Bellevue’s current superintendent, Alicia Henderson, and chief budget officer, Joel Dontos, will argue their case against Walker next month in Sonoma County small claims court, where lawyers aren’t allowed to represent the parties.

Walker’s attorney, whom she hired in an effort to receive the overtime pay, characterized the district’s filing the case in small claims court - where typically small-time cases are heard - as an effort to put Walker at a legal disadvantage.

Henderson rejected that claim, saying the district filed in small claims court to avoid spending taxpayer money on lawyers to represent the district in Superior Court, although the district did pay for legal assistance to fight the overtime issue.

The case, filed in February, also carries a suggestion of political retribution, according to Walker’s attorney, Jarin Beck, since Walker barely lost in her run for a seat on the school board in November. Had she won, she’d be the boss of those suing her. He said she intends to run again.

Henderson said the district legally must go after Walker for what the district now believes were incorrectly paid wages.

“When she was overpaid, it would constitute a gift of public funds, so the district is obligated to follow up to take appropriate action,” she said. The district is seeking $5,000 in court.

Bellevue, an 1,800-student district south of Santa Rosa with a budget of $13.7 million, has the highest percentage of students living in poverty of any of Sonoma County’s 40 school districts.

The five-school district with students from kindergarten through eighth grade also has the second-lowest state academic scores among the county’s elementary school districts.

The wage dispute started in 2013 when Walker, 57, put in for several thousand dollars of overtime pay she said she hadn’t been compensated for in the previous several months. She said she’d worked several weekends at the office and sometimes at home and was not paid for those hours.

When the district began investigating that claim, Henderson said, it found instead what she said was an improper classification of Walker’s job level that overpaid her $6,813 in gross wages from July 1, 2012, through May 3, 2013.

Henderson insisted the overtime issue and the overpayment allegation are “separate and distinct” matters.

Walker and her attorney don’t accept that contention.

“I think when we brought the claim for overtime, they didn’t like that, so this is retaliation for that,” Beck said.

The district sent Walker a check for about $1,000 as a settlement for the overtime, Henderson said. But Beck said $10,000 is closer to the amount Walker is owed in overtime, and she hasn’t cashed the check.

“We have plenty of documentation about the investigation,” Henderson said. “The district is very confident about that. It was a generous payment.”

The overpayment argument could be trickier for the district, given that the previous superintendent, Tony Roehrick, personally investigated and approved Walker’s wages in writing.

In a June 2012 letter from Roehrick that also went to the director of fiscal services, Susie Raymond, Roehrick acknowledged he approved Walker’s request to be placed on a higher salary step, based on documentation that showed she was placed at the wrong step when hired.

“You were in fact placed at a rate much lower than you should have been,” he wrote.

Three days later, he confirmed the wage increase in a second letter: “My agreement to place you at step 15 … was made in order that you would eventually make up the compensation you lost.”

By Walker’s calculations, the original misplacement had resulted in an overall loss of $8,529 in wages from August 2007 to June 30, 2012, Roehrick’s letter said.

In a subsequent letter to Walker’s attorney, Roehrick confirmed his assessment again: “I investigated and found that Ms. Walker’s claim was accurate and that she was then placed at a higher level on the salary schedule to appropriately compensate her.

“As the then-superintendent for the Bellevue Union School District, I held the authority to both investigate Ms. Walker’s claim and to take the action that was taken to address her claims. My action did not establish a new salary structure, only a new placement on an existing, board approved, salary structure.”

Henderson declined to comment on her predecessor’s statements. In legal filings, the district argued that the superintendent didn’t have the authority to change Walker’s salary.

Beck, Walker’s attorney, said he would understand the district seeking to recoup the money if it were purely an error.

“But when you have a superintendent at the highest position other than the board authorizing it, it’s no longer done in error,” he said. “It was done purposely. To now come back and say it was a mistake, it was outside his authority, doesn’t pass the smell taste.”

Since Walker’s wage irregularities were discovered, Henderson said the district has made wholesale changes in the payroll department, which changed to a new payroll system three years ago.

A crisis management audit commissioned by the district last year found dozens of errors in pay, timekeeping and record keeping during a check of documents provided by the district.

A court hearing is set for May 29.

You can reach Lori A. Carter at 521-5470 or lori.carter@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @loriacarter.