Fired school worker seeks back wages

Bill Whelan

A facilities worker at South Salem Elementary School in Port Washington is seeking $42,000 in back wages after she was fired on July 1 for misreporting her time sheets. 

District officials claim that America Leon was paid $700 for 20 hours she didn’t work while continuously leaving early on a late shift at South Salem School, according to Steven Moser, Leon’s attorney.

Moser conceded that Leon needed to be much more careful with recording her time sheets, but said she was owed approximately $42,000 in back wages for arriving early and never taking her lunch or rest breaks that were automatically removed from her paycheck over the six years she worked at South Salem.

“Every week in which it’s alleged she stole hours from the school, she worked more hours than she was paid for,” Moser said at the July 1 Port Washington Board of Education meeting in which Ms. Leon was terminated.

Port Washington schools human resources administrator Elaine Fenick confirmed that Leon was a cleaner with the district from Aug. 16, 2001 until July 2, but said she could not comment on her allegations due to potential litigation. Attempts to reach other school officials were unavailing. 

Moser said the decision to fire Leon was made after district administrators cross referenced the time sheets for workers on the late shift with the time alarms were set and found that workers were leaving their shift early. 

Authorities had arrived to an empty building 30 minutes before the worker’s shift was supposed to end one night in June when an alarm was triggered. The two custodians who worked with Leon that night were her superiors, and were both allowed to resign, Moser said.

Moser said the two custodians would tell Leon that is was time to go when they left their shift early and after speaking to Monte Vane, the Civil Service Employee Union representative, he learned that the two custodians’ indiscretions dwarfed Leon’s. 

Based on the misreported hours, those two employees had taken from the school, “in excess of $10,000 each” Moser said.

Leon filed a grievance against director of facilities James Ristano last year after she was passed over for a job that was based on seniority by a less experienced worker. The grievance was scheduled to go before a public employees review board in Brooklyn on July 24. 

Moster said a union representative told him that after Leon was terminated at the July 1 board of education meeting she would be denied unemployment benefits and could not move forward with her grievance against Ristano since she was no longer a school employee.

Ristano, Moser said, was present at a June 19 meeting along with Vane and Fenick to talk with Leon about her misreported hours. Moser said the school’s attorney questioned Leon for two hours and asked Leon if she ever took her 30-minute lunch breaks or two 10-minute rest breaks, to which Leon replied, “no.”

Moser said it was the school’s policy to automatically take lunch and rest breaks out of employees’ paychecks, but the breaks were not strictly enforced. 

“Thirty minutes a day for lunch plus rest breaks and coming in 15 minutes early everyday, over six years it came to about 1,100 hours. Doing the math she was owed about $42,000 in back wages,” Moser said.

Moser said he met with Fenick on Monday, June 24 to discuss his intention to seek back wages for Leon in federal court if she was terminated,

Leon received a letter on June 26 telling her she would be receiving four days vacation and she would be terminated at the July 1 board meeting effective July 2, Moser said. 

Moser said that in the coming weeks he will file a class-action lawsuit for back wages on behalf of all 70 facilities workers in the Port Washington district.

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