3rd Trimester

Is this legal?

I'm a teacher and my salary is budgeted, meaning divided by 26 so I get paid over the summer.  I am going on ML March 19th and taking FMLA for the remainder of the school year. Technically, once my FMLA ends, I am again employed with the school and will be paid over the summer as always.  Summer paychecks are always 1/26 of your salary.

Payroll just sent me an e-mail saying that my summer pay will be lowered based on when I leave for ML.  I asked how much.  They would not give me any specifics. Not even a ballpark answer like "You get 85% of your pay if you work X number of weeks and 55% of your pay if you work Y number of weeks." Nothing. He just said, "Your summer pay will be adjusted". 

Am I the only one who cannot go six weeks without a clue what my paycheck is going to be?  Are they allowed to just "wait and see" without giving me any kind of mathematical formula or basis with which to budget?

ETA: I emailed him again asking, "For budgeting purposes, could you give me the formula you use, please?  Or, could you calculate my pay based on my leaving exactly on March 19th and having a 6wk maternity leave plus exactly 6wks of FMLA? Thanks in advance for the help. I am trying to calculate income & expenses for our new family this summer!" ....we'll see what he says.

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Re: Is this legal?

  • That sounds really weird. Why would it not be the usual 1/26? Did you email back to ask?
  • Are you in a teacher's union?  I'd be calling them up immediately if so.
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  • imagelaurenrobbie:
    That sounds really weird. Why would it not be the usual 1/26? Did you email back to ask?

    Here was his response when I e-mailed back and asked for clarification so I could budget:

    "Your pay is all contingent on when you deliver your baby.By the dates that you are telling me and you wanting to take the rest of the School year off.Your summer pay will be adjusted.For now that is all I can tell you.Hope this helps."

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  • Does it have anything to do with the FMLA.  Most places don't pay you for that so I'm wondering if that's what the issue is...

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  • The same thing happened to a friend of mine. She had her baby the week before spring break and missed the end of the semester. They did adjust her paycheck but I don't know by how much. You may want to talk to another teacher who had a baby recently and see if she can give you any advice.

    It may not hurt to talk to the board of education or take a look at your school's policies to see what it says about maternity leave and see if there are any specifics on what is taken out of your check.

     

  • I would be contacting a teachers union as well if you belong to one, otherwise HR. That is too vague and they need to explain your benefits to you better. That's their job.
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  • imageStrawberryAlarmClock:

    imagelaurenrobbie:
    That sounds really weird. Why would it not be the usual 1/26? Did you email back to ask?

    Here was his response when I e-mailed back and asked for clarification so I could budget:

    "Your pay is all contingent on when you deliver your baby.By the dates that you are telling me and you wanting to take the rest of the School year off.Your summer pay will be adjusted.For now that is all I can tell you.Hope this helps."

    Hmm, WEIRD! I would definitely go to someone else for clarification!!

  • He's being awfully cagey.  Maybe he's referring to the fact that since you won't be generating a paycheck for those weeks, you will have to "pay back" any benefits that are automatically deducted from your check.  My HR lady told me to look at how much is deducted from my check and multiply it by 2.5, since that's how many payperiods I'll be out.  That's about how much I will "owe" the district back on my first couple paychecks.
  • This doesn't sound legal.

     

    Call your union rep.

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  • My sister is a teacher and her time off while on maternity leave wasn't "paid" so her paychecks were adjusted.  She did get SDI for the 6 weeks, but that I believe was only 2/3 of her pay.
  • That's not an acceptable answer. They have the answers and they should be sharing the information with you. I would be talking to someone in charge and getting my questions answered ASAP. I'm due March 7th and taking the rest of the school year off as well. I emailed our HR guy two weeks ago about when to expect my first summer paycheck to be deposited and you better believe I expect him to be able to give me the exact date! It's our money, so it's our right to know what's going on with it. GL and be stern!
  • At my school we do not get paid ML so I have to use my days and then anything else is unpaid.  Since I do not know the exact date I will be going out (as I'm sure you don't either since you didn't mention a scheduled C-section) they can't tell you exactly how much it is going to be because they don't know the exact amount of days you will be out.  So for instance my school will take the number of days I'm out after my paid leave and multiply that by $187.  They will then divide up that total for my last few pay checks, including the summer ones, for this school year and subtract that from there so I will be getting paid every paycheck just not the full amount so I don't have to go without any money for those paychecks.  Does this make sense?  Maybe this is what your school does also. 

  • I understand why they can't give you an exact figure, not knowing your exact date...but can you ask them to tell you what if would be if your last day was X date...then you can have a vague idea?

    Since the pay is adjusted so that you get paid all year long, say you miss 4 weeks of work...that's 4 weeks of instruction time that you don't get paid for.  Unfortunately, that doesn't equal 4 weekly paychecks...because they are spread out over the summer.

    It sounds like they are just being lazy and don't want to calculate based on your estimated last day.  (Or they have been burned in the past when someone went out earlier than planned and was upset because they got less over the summer than they anticipated.)

    Bianca image.
  • imageALG29:
    My sister is a teacher and her time off while on maternity leave wasn't "paid" so her paychecks were adjusted.  She did get SDI for the 6 weeks, but that I believe was only 2/3 of her pay.

    This is what happens in our school board. Technically we aren't paid over the summer, Christmas break, spring break, etc. The pay checks we receive over these periods is from money that has been collected throughout the working year.  

    Depending on when we go off for mat leave, we could owe the school board or the board might owe us money.  Example: we started to get paid for the 09/10 school year in August.  If you were to take mat leave in, let's say, October you would owe the board money because you haven't yet paid for those couple of weeks in August with the money that was coming off your checks in September. If you are to leave take leave at the end of June, the board would probably owe you money since you have been paying for July.

    I left in January, which is consider the halfway point so I neither owe or am owed money.

    Clear as mud! haha

  • imageStrawberryAlarmClock:

    imagelaurenrobbie:
    That sounds really weird. Why would it not be the usual 1/26? Did you email back to ask?

    Here was his response when I e-mailed back and asked for clarification so I could budget:

    "Your pay is all contingent on when you deliver your baby.By the dates that you are telling me and you wanting to take the rest of the School year off.Your summer pay will be adjusted.For now that is all I can tell you.Hope this helps."

    im reading that as since they dont know when you will have your baby they dont know how many weeks to subtract. Not sure if it's the same, but my friend did something similar and took off 6 additional weeks (unpaid FMLA) so her salary was reduced by that 6 weeks. meaning instead say 1/26 of 26000 (makes easy math for me sorry) she got 1/26 of 20,000 (since that 6000 was deducted from her annual salary)

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  • i teach but i'm confused with this issue. maybe because we only get paid for 10 months (not the summer months, obviously).

    when i go out i will be receiving benefits from an SDI company that i pay into which will be about 70 or 80% of my regular pay, until the doctor says i need to return. if i stay out past my doctor's date of return, they will use up my off time to pay me, and once that runs out, that is it.

    i doubt that i am helping with your situation, but just wanted to share mine if it might be of some help. all i can say is my HR sucks too (i've asked them a couple questions and they have still yet to get back to me and i'm 35 wks already). but your HR's answer is flat out unacceptable. i can see them not wanting to give you a specific answer, but they should be able to give you a (non-binding) ballpark response so that you can plan accordingly.

  • Sounds normal to me because we always select 10 or 12 month pay.  So, it would make sense that your summer checks would be lowered based on the time you're not being paid for.  Also, beware, by going unpaid for FMLA, it may be LOTS more money than you're planning on.  Here, I work 182 contract days a year, so each unpaid day costs me 1/182 of my salary.  That's a BIG chunk of change.

    I'd go to payroll and sit with someone and figure it all out with them.

  • I think it is definitely legal that they don't pay you your full salary, and I would assume that since you will be gone for 6 weeks unpaid, that is what they would be adjusting for. So, for example, if you make $40,000 per year and work 40 weeks per year (12 weeks of summer off) then you were choosing to go unpaid for 6 weeks that means you are only working 34 of your 40 required weeks, hence instead of being paid $40,000 you would be paid $34,000. Your summer checks will likely take a huge hit - if you receive anything at all because will be a large proportionate loss.
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  • I'm a teacher, also.  I get 6 weeks paid & 6 weeks unpaid due to FMLA.  My pay will be adjusted because of the 6 FMLA unpaid weeks I'll be taking.
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  • It's probably legal, but doesn't seem right. 

     

    My guess is... you get paid for X number of hours of work, even though they pay you over 26 pay periods.  If X - being the number of hours worked - decreases, then your pay would be decreased to compensate.  

    For example, (made up numbers) lets say I work 40 hours a week, and make ~ $40,000 a year.  

    40 hours x 52 weeks =  2,080 hours / year.  $40,000 divided by 2,080 hours is $19.23 per hour.

    Now lets say (made up numbers) you make $40,000 a year but actually only work 40 weeks of the year.  40 hours x 40 weeks = 1600 hours per year.  $40,000 divided by 1600 hours is $25 per hour. 

    Now you divide up your 40 weeks of pay over 52 weeks... So lets say you miss the last 4 weeks of the school year.... you would then only get paid for 36 weeks of work, but it would still be spread out over 52 weeks. 

    So instead of getting $25 x 1600 hours for $40k a year , you would get $25 x  1440 hours for $36,000 a year. 

    To get your paycheck... $40,000 divided by 26 = $1,538 per paycheck.  But $36,000 divided by 26 = $1,384 per paycheck. 

    So when you have your baby is very important.  If you have it later, and work more weeks/hours... your "yearly pay" is not reduced as much.  If you had your baby during the summer, you wouldn't be docked at all because you wouldn't actually miss any work.  

    Keep in mind also, they will have been paying you as though you were working the full 40 weeks all year... so when they adjust your paychecks, they may be seriously deficient.  

  • It sounds legal to me. Usually FMLA is unpaid, so he's probably saying (in a really ineffective way) that he can't tell you which paychecks will be adjusted and by how much until they know when the leave starts.
  • Thanks so much, everyone. I am truly no good at math at all. My head starts spinning the second someone even mentions a number. I printed this out and read/hi-lighted everyone's responses. LOL 

    Tomorrow, I'll send yet another e-mail requesting a sit-down meeting with him to spell it out clearly.

    Thanks again!

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