FARMINGTON – Several former Kerr House employees are demanding all their vacation pay and are unwilling to settle for the 75 percent offered.
Former case manager for Kerr House Noreen Coolidge and other former workers notified the board of directors of the Positive Turning Points for Youth. It is the parent agency of the house for parenting and pregnant teenagers that closed last month due to financial difficulties.
“We are hereby writing to demand full payment of the vacation pay owed to us,” states the letter sent via e-mail. “If we do not hear from you on this matter or you are unwilling to pay the full amount … we will have no other option but to file a complaint with the Maine Department of Labor and begin civil proceedings.”
According to Janine Winn, chairwoman of Positive Turning Points, the board took a look at the list of things owed and prorated everything and decided to pay 75 percent of most of the bills, which included vacation pay.
The board had planned to pay the remaining 25 percent of the vacation pay if the house is sold and a profit made on it, Winn said. More than $10,000 is owed in vacation pay, spread over a couple of years, added Winn.
“We’ve paid them all of their wages,” Winn said.
There are a slug of bills to pay and the board had to figure out what it could pay, she added.
The board is planning to pay 75 percent of the vacation pay in late June or early July, Coolidge said.
The board also paid some individual providers of services to former residents and for work that was done on the house. But there are still bills to pay, Winn said.
Some staff people understand what position the board is in and are willing to accept the payment while others are not as accepting, Winn said.
It was announced Friday that Kerr House is for sale.
“Hopefully the sale of the house will realize enough that we’ll be able to cover what we owe the bank and take care of vacation pay,” Winn said.
The board set aside a little cash to keep certain utilities on and pay the mortgage for a limited time. The board doesn’t want to lose the house to the bank, she said.
The mortgage on Kerr House is $200,000.
If the house is sold, Winn said, there are also the contents that would be sold.
“We’ve really tried to make decisions to treat people as fairly as we can,” she said. “It’s been tough.”
A meeting for community input is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 23, at the G.H. Bass Room at Franklin Memorial Hospital.
dperry@sunjournal.com
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