Philipsburg: --- Commissioner of Education William Marlin said based on information provided to him by the department of finance concerning the short vacation payment for public school teachers. Marlin said the department had made an error and they should have made contact with each teacher notifying them of the mistake and rectifications.
Marlin said the President of the Teachers Union Claire Elshot made contact with him regarding the vacation pay which is much less than previous years.
The commissioner said up until Wednesday morning he was still receiving calls since the teachers wants to know where the mistake lies. The commissioner further explained that having such an error one week after they took office is rather unfortunate. However, he felt other measures should have been taken to at least inform the teachers of the changes since they are collecting much less than they are used to collecting. He made clear that the current executive council did not have one week in office when this error was discovered and they would sure not be taking any responsibility for such.
Marlin said according to information provided to him on Wednesday morning there was an error that was made by the department since last year which was rectified this year. He said the teachers received more than was due to them for the year 2007.
According to the finance department said in the past years the regular tax table was erroneously applied to the vacation allowance thereby giving a higher net pay. The department did not say for how many years this error was made but did say that for the 2008-2009 the correct tax table was applied as per the existing tax laws which yielded a lower net pay. The department further explained that they incorrectly calculated the teacher’s vacation allowance for the year 2007-2008 by adding the Windward Islands allowance twice.
The department further explained a second error pertains to the new salary scales to which teachers already had. The 16.3% Windward Allowance was counted twice as this was already included in the new salary scales. When added in for the second time it yielded a higher net pay in 2007-2008 compared to the 2008-2009.
Marlin said when the new salary scaled was implemented the Windward Island Allowances has been incorporated.
Marlin said another effect for lower allowances this year is the ceiling for the AOV allowances increased in 2009 from 72,000 guilders to 77,544 guilders which also resulted in a lower net pay for 2008-2009.
Marlin said there were three issues that impacted the 2008-2009 vacation allowances for public school teachers and he cannot imagine that the outgoing executive council did know of this or not informed of the new procedures. The new commissioner apologized to the teachers who are now realizing that they lost monies. He said this is not a good feeling since everyone is looking forward to hold on to their monies. He said worst of all these teachers worked hard all year and now they are looking forward to their allowances it has been cut short of more than Naf 1000.00
The commissioner said he does not know if there are any type of adjustments can be made. However, the department has appointed someone to handle payrolls. This person he said is charged with coming up with a more accurate payroll of all extraordinary payments.
