Youth paychecks delayed, Tsosie says

Leonard Tsosie (Whitehorse Lake/Pueblo Pintado/Torreon) isn't happy with officials working for the summer youth employment program, claiming that he's been getting complaints from families in the Eastern Agency that their children aren't being paid on time.

"We're having families traveling to Crownpoint and Window Rock asking why their children aren't being paid," he said.

He's brought the problem up with President Joe Shirley Jr. and has suggested that maybe the tribe should withhold the paycheck of the directors of the program, both in Window Rock and on the agency level, until they can certify that all of the high school and college students in the program have been paid.

He pointed out that the students are "barely making minimum wage" and their parents are spending more to travel to Window Rock to complain than their children are being paid by the tribe.

This isn't right, he said, not only because the youth are counting on the money to pay their expenses but also because it gives them the wrong message about working on the reservation.

For many, he said, this will mark their first job and not being paid will give them a bad impression of what the work experience is.

"There's no excuse not to pay them on time," he said. "This should be a top priority."

Marilyn King Johnson, director of the Office of Youth Development, said her people as well as workers in personnel and payroll are doing the best they can to the point where some have been working at night and on weekends to get the paychecks out on time.

But adding 3,000 to 4,000 temporary workers taxes the system and some of the summer youth programs may have seen delays in getting out checks on time.

If that happens, she said, it's usually a delay of just a couple of days.

In listening to Tsosie's concerns, Johnson said her department also feels committed to having the paychecks out on time but the reality is that it's sometimes difficult to accomplish and every year there are some checks that may be delayed a couple of days.

It also may be that the parents are complaining about a program other than the summer youth program the tribe sponsors.

"The chapters have their own programs as does the state. Even some departments have their own program," she said.

Another factor may be a misunderstanding by the students on when they would be paid.

For example, some students began working on July 7 and may have expected to be paid on July 16 when paychecks came out. But the tribe pays every two weeks and the pay period for those who began work on July 7 was July 18. Their first paycheck would come out on July 30.

There have been a couple of times in the past when paychecks were delayed because of problems with funding but Johnson said that's not a problem this year. "We have plenty of money," she said.

Funding for the summer youth employment program, she said, comes from the tribe and the U.S. Department of Labor.

High school students get a minimum of $6.79 an hour and college students get $7.13 an hour with supervisors getting a little more.

But to get that first paycheck requires a lot of paperwork that has to be done by the tribe's personnel department and then by the payroll section.

"People in those departments have been volunteering their time to get (this paperwork) processed," she said.

Sometimes it's a matter of making sure the paperwork is done properly. If there is a problem with the paperwork, it could be kicked back for more information, which also may delay the processing of the paychecks.

For those who have not been paid when they should, she said, arrangements have been made to have the paychecks processed outside the normal procedures so that the employees don't have to wait another two weeks to be paid.

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