LAKE COUNTY, Ohio — A Lake County school board was issued a court order to pay over $1 million to teachers in back pay, but union leaders are accusing the board of defying that court order.
It's a fight the union has waged against the Auburn Career Center for over 10 years.
In 2021, a court ordered the Auburn Vocational School District Board of Education to pay the Career & Technical Association $1,486,045.78 in back pay for work ranging all the way back to 2011.
A leader from the Career & Technical Association (CATA) says the hold up comes from the Auburn Vocational School District Board of Education's unwillingness to pay it through their traditional payroll system.
"They were instructed to pay it through our payroll system so it could be correctly taxed, it would correctly be going into our retirement system and everything else. And their choosing not to want to do that through our regular salary pay scale."
Attorneys for the school board released the following statement in response to the accusation:
"On October 14, 2021, the Lake County Court of Common Pleas (“Trial Court”) issued a final judgment against the Auburn Vocational School District Board of Education (“Board”) in the total amount of One Million Four Hundred Eighty-Six Thousand Forty-Five Dollars and Seventy-Eight Cents ($1,486,045.78) to be distributed among eligible teachers for planning period stipends. As soon as the planning period stipend litigation concluded, the Board immediately attempted to satisfy this total $1,486,045.78 judgment amount in full but, given the dispute between eligible teachers as to how this total amount must be distributed, the Board has requested that the Trial Court permit the Board to immediately deposit the total $1,486,045.78 judgment amount with the Trial Court for safekeeping, payment, and disposition to all eligible teachers. The Board is awaiting guidance from the Ohio Eleventh District Court of Appeals as to how the total $1,486,045.78 judgment amount must be distributed to each eligible teacher."
Some teachers with the school are owed upwards of $70,000. CATA is expected to file additional lawsuits on the matter.