Prince George’s County Public Schools must pay $6 million in fines and back wages for illegally reducing the wages of more than 1,000 foreign teachers, federal officials said Monday. School officials forced teachers in the H-1B temporary foreign visa program to pay $4.22 million in fees that the school system was legally bound to pay for using the program. As a result of paying the fees, foreign teachers’ salaries were reduced below those of U.S. workers, which is forbidden to keep employers from misuing visa programs.
Federal officials made that clear with a $1.74 million fine to the cash-strapped school system.
“All employers, including school systems, are required to follow the law. That includes the legal duty to pay every teacher hired the full wages he or she is owed,” said Nancy Leppink, acting director of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division.
Department officials said the Prince George’s school system could be banned from hiring new foreign teachers, extending their stays or giving permanent residency to them, “due to the willful nature of some of the violations.” Officials say Prince George’s school administrators acted “in reckless disregard for whether its actions were impermissible,” when it came to the teachers, a vast majority who hailed from the Philippines.
The Wage and Hour Division has been investigating the public school system’s practices since 2007. The teachers, who were hired between 2005 and 2010, paid fees ranging from $190 to $320 to file their visas; spent about $1,000 in immigration attorney fees; and shelled out another $3,500 in placement fees. Hundreds also paid a $500 anti-fraud filing fee.
Superintendent William Hite said he will appeal within the 15-day period allotted.
Hite disputed the agency’s findings of “willful failure to pay wages” and “failure to maintain documentation as required,” saying that the school system fully cooperated with the federal investigation and “acted in good faith” to comply with regulations.
The ruling “may have a devastating impact on PGCPS and its employees and the school system’s ability to continue to place a highly qualified teacher in every classroom,” Hite said.
The division has closed 17 investigations and has several open cases into this type of potential fraud, agency officials said.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said it was “appalling” that Prince George’s “unfairly exploited” some of its foreign teachers.
“It is especially troubling that this exploitation occurred just a short drive from the nation’s capital,” Weingarten said.
The school system is knee deep in financial crisis going into fiscal 2012. In February, the school board approved Hite’s proposal to increase class sizes and eliminate more than 1,000 positions as $155 million is cut from the district’s budget.
Hite declined to comment beyond his statement through a spokeswoman, who cited the appeal.
