Another Chilton County school employee comes forward with overpayment letter, saying it put her in a “financial bind”

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) - The Chilton County School Board gathered for their first public meeting since two employees were told they were overpaid by the district. They now may owe more than $20,000 each.

At the school board meeting, WBRC learned of a third letter that shows another Chilton County school employee was overpaid by thousands during the 2016-2017 school year.

“I didn’t know that I was overpaid,” Chilton County Lunchroom Assistant Manager Frances Allison said.

Allison has worked in the cafeteria for the last 25 years, but in 2017, she had to pay back more than $3,000 to the school district. She said her manager at the time gave her the letter and told her to sign it right away. Allison said she had no options to pay it back or not.

“To pay it back, starting in March, it was $593.19 a month,” Allison said. “With child nutrition, you don’t make a whole lot of money, so I was devastated. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I was in a financial bind.”

Allison said she worked the summer program that year for extra money, but she said her paychecks were still only around $500 for six months.

“It’s not even a car payment hardly,” Allison said. “I feel sorry for the ladies that have to pay back way more than I did, but I thank God mine was caught in time. Still, I think it was unfair because it was not our mistake.”

She went to the board at the time, but said she never got answers about how this happened.

“They never could figure it out, why I was overpaid,” she said. “Why they didn’t catch it, but they just couldn’t give me an answer.”

Thankful she didn’t have to pay more, she encourages all employees to double check their paychecks.

“I called the payroll department and said ‘hey my check is 11 cents more,’” Allison said. “She said ‘Miss Allison you’re’ fine,’ so I said ‘Okay, I just wanted to make sure’.”

At the meeting, some board members said they were not clear that the letters were being sent out and some said it was the board president’s call to send them out.

The AEA tells WBRC that their legal teams have not gotten any documents from the district about the other two overpaid employees. AEA officials said that the district will not begin taking money out of paychecks until they all come to a resolution. The AEA tells WBRC that each employee is still being paid their same salary as before, so they are potentially still being overpaid.

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