Teacher Pension Funds Shortchanged

"Haas Hall Academy’s educational philosophy is to expose our scholars to advanced science and math courses and prepare our scholars now for the rigorous content they will be exposed to in college," says the website of the Farmington charter school. They should also expose the director to basic courses in math, ethics, accounting, and law to prepare him for an audit, because ignorance is no excuse.

The school repeatedly shortchanged teachers and their retirement pension fund for several years. The Arkansas Department of Education says the school owes a combined $46,420.91 it withheld from employees’ paychecks but never sent to the retirement fund and delinquent employer contributions that it never made to the fund. The debt claims first prize for the largest an Arkansas school has ever owed the teacher retirement system.

Haas Hall must pay an additional $3,300 in late fees for the missed monthly payments, but no criminal charges have been filed because the director "likely didn’t understand his school’s legal obligations to the retirement system." Right, they deducted money from employees' salaries for retirement, and then had no idea what to do with it?

When the school did make payments, school officials inaccurately reported their payroll and miscalculated how much was owed to the retirement system. One employee was overcharged $1,800 in deductions in a single year, while other employees were undercharged and now cannot access their retirement funds until they pay additional money.

The Arkansas Board of Education, which has authority to revoke the school's charter, has requested that the Division of Legislative Audit examine Haas Hall's books more thoroughly for recent activity and report back by December. This is one that the corporate media will not be able to blame on what the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette delights in calling "union bosses."