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Dearborn charter school nearly padlocked for debt owed by former 3rd-party employee
According to the school superintendent, the Civil Service Officer agreed to take a thousand dollars and gave the school 14 days to sort everything out in court - but she says that was a challenge.
DEARBORN, Mich. (FOX 2) - West Village Academy Superintendent Carletta Counts was shocked on Wednesday to find out her school was being served.
The legal document was a request and order to seize property at the Dearborn charter school, sent from 4b Judicial District Court.
"We pay the amount or they were going to put padlocks on the doors and begin to seize the school’s property on behalf of this person's debt," Counts said.
A debt of more than $3,800 - and now with interest and court costs, the amount owed is over $4,400 to Dearborn Federal Credit Union. The person who owes the money stopped working at the school last October.
"West Village Academy is a charter academy and we have a management company which is a third-party employment agency," Counts said. "The employee - he never worked for the actual academy, although he was housed in here to do the work for the academy."
Counts and her staff now trying to put the pieces of this puzzle together and get to the bottom of why the academy was served.
"We’re understanding that a court order was sent during Covid times back in May when the school was closed, for the garnishment of the check but we don’t have receipt of that, we never received that," Counts said. "They said again that they came back in November and again we have no documentation."
Counts says the school didn’t re-open until the beginning of 2022.
"I have had contact with their actual employer to help sort this out," she said.
FOX 2: "What are they saying?"
"There’s nothing in their file about the garnishment as well," she added.
According to the school superintendent, the Civil Service Officer agreed to take a thousand dollars and gave the school 14 days to sort everything out in court - but she says that was a challenge.
"You have to understand the school doesn’t maintain those types of funds on-premises," she said. "I’m not allowed to just write checks out. There is a process with the board and the board president when we're writing checks, double signatures, so I wouldn’t have the money regardless."
What if the officer had padlocked the school?
"We do have the ability to go virtual because of Covid," she said. "But we’re in the middle of testing and that’s important for our students, end of the year resolve and what they’ve done.
"It would have hindered the school for 14 days when we're sorting out a legal mess that the kids had nothing to do with, nor the academy."
Now the school's attorney is filing a motion in court. FOX 2 contacted the law firm representing DFCU but we have not heard back.
Students and staff will be allowed to use the school after the superintendent paid $1,000. But tracking down the former third-party employee who owes the money is the next challenge.