Sixteen instructors for Kapiolani Community College’s Continuing Education program have recently received overdue paychecks for noncredit courses they taught as far back as last fall.
KCC Chancellor Leon Richards said reasons for the delay included a turnover in personnel and employment documents being misplaced, misfiled or not processed on time.
Richards said faculty and staff are adjusting to a new federal requirement involving job postings online. The school improved the flow of information from human resources to the business office and program coordinators, he said.
KCC’s Continuing Education program is self-supporting, dependent on student fees to pay instructors and cover other costs. Noncredit courses offered include language and cultural classes, health and home care, massage therapy and culinary arts.
Richards said KCC created an operations unit to process and track documents.
"We are in the process of putting those pieces together to make sure this doesn’t happen again," he said.
Willow Chang, who has taught dance classes for the past 12 years, said she recently received about three payments totaling about $3,000, money KCC owed to her for classes taught from September 2011 to April.
Teddy Harrison, a registered nurse for 42 years who teaches a class on home care for seniors, said she also recently received a paycheck from KCC. Harrison had told the Star-Advertiser the community college owed her $3,800.
"We’re settled," Harrison said.
In May, the Star-Advertiser reported that some KCC instructors were not being paid for classes they taught. Money owed to all affected instructors was paid by August.
Chang said various administrative changes affected the program.
"It’s been a long time coming in terms of the problems, per se," she said. Along with the payment issue, she pointed out that classes offered have significantly dropped.
Richards said a marketing committee was recently created to boost the program and a plan will be put into effect next spring. A program development unit was set up to work with businesses to find out their needs and develop employee training programs.
