Lockhart trustees approve staff payments amid closure

By Wesley Gardner
LPR Editor

The Lockhart school district board of trustees voted unanimously at Monday night’s board meeting to approve a resolution allowing the district to continue to pay its staff, including hourly workers, if they are instructed to not report to work.
According to the resolution, continued wage payments will be made to all employees — contractual and non-contractual, long-term substitutes in vacancy positions, substitutes who have provided at least 100 days of service during the 2019-2020 school year, and salaried and non-salaried employees — who are instructed not to report to work during the emergency closing.
District Chief Financial Officer Tina Knudsen said there could be instances in which employees may suffer a loss in pay.
“If employees were rescheduled to work during the current school calendar, the wage payments would be continued even though employees are not at work now,” said Knudsen. “If they were to work (makeup) any of the days before the end of the current school calendar, they would have already been paid for the work that they perform.”
The resolution also states all nonexempt employees who are required to work during the emergency closures will be paid time-and-a-half for all hours worked up to 40 hours a week.

To view the rest of this story, see this week’s edition of the Post-Register