'Never seen anything like this': Westerly teachers seek audit after file error ruins data
WESTERLY – The town's teachers are flummoxed by a financial mess that has led to lost health care coverage, errors on tax forms, late retirement-plan payments and altered personal information.
Now, educators and the School Committee are calling for an independent audit. But Town Manager Shawn Lacey insists everything has been fixed.
Teachers disagree.
Empty HSAs, incorrect W-2s, corrupt files
The matter came to light in January when members of the Westerly Teachers Association started reporting a host of issues: empty Health Savings Accounts that left them having to pay from other sources for medical care, late deposits to tax-sheltered annuity plans, incorrect information on W-2 tax forms and problems with retirement accounts run by the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America. That includes erroneous transactions and changes to personal information.
Some teachers said their birthdate, gender, Social Security number and address were changed. It was not clear how this occurred, though the issue has been described as a "corrupt file," or a document that has been changed. The National Education Association Rhode Island, one of the state's largest teacher unions, said most of the teacher union's 278 members encountered at least one of the above issues.
NEARI spokeswoman Stephanie DeSilva Mandeville said she didn't suspect that a security breach was to blame.
But the explanation is murky. Lacey said "there was a calculation on the form" that spells out personal information that was not rendered correctly.
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"Our paychecks, our medical coverage, our retirement – this grievous data error has effected every aspect of our livelihoods, and all the issues have not been fixed," said WTA President Kristen Federico. "We know mistakes happen, but we've lost confidence in the Finance Department. We deserve to be made whole and assured that our town is doing everything possible to rectify the problem and prevent it from happening again."
Teachers spend hours sorting through data as union asks for help
The council is set to vote on the request for an independent audit on Monday.
On Wednesday night, NEARI Assistant Executive Director Crystal Bergantine emailed Town Council President Bill Aiello saying teachers are still sorting through the mess, "spending hours on the phone" with TIAA agents to verify their information, and some are still locked out of their accounts.
"The TIAA agents have stated to some of our members that their files 'are a mess' and that 'they have never seen anything like this before,'" Bergantine said. "Some members are waiting on return calls from TIAA."
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Bergantine urged the town to find professionals who can help each union member with these issues.
"There are pages and pages of transactions that cannot be deciphered by a layperson," Bergantine said. "There are year-to-date amounts on current pay stubs that are not matching what is on the TIAA account dashboards. Unfortunately, there is no way for the WTA members to confirm their account balances are accurate or clearly articulate any losses without the assistance of a professional financial advisor or accountant."
The Providence Journal has reached out to Lacey and Aiello for further comment.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Westerly teachers reeling after error leaves them in financial mess
