School payroll clerk accused of padding paycheck

BY STACI WILSON

A Montrose school district payroll clerk is accused of padding her timesheets and forging a supervisor’s name to get paid for hours she did not work.

According to police, Alison L. Nichols, 45, 131 State St., Nicholson, racked up about $2,600 in pay for time she did not work from Oct. 2010 until March.

Police said the school district employee told them she had been having personal financial problems and that the allegations were true.

“I altered my hours for extra pay,” Nichols said in a March 28 interview with state troopers, according to a police affidavit.

Nichols was charged Thursday with felony counts of forgery, theft by deception and receiving stolen property in Montrose District Court.

Montrose Area School District Business Manager Michele Lusk told police, in a March 28 meeting, that she had been notified Nichols had cashed a paycheck prior to its issuance date.

Lusk told police she then began to review Nichols pay statement and discovered she had been paid for 10 hours of overtime she did not work.

According to police, Lusk then began reviewing Nichols past pay statements and discovered the school payroll clerk had been receiving extra pay since October.

Lusk told police she also discovered Nichols had received full paychecks on weeks when the clerk had taken leave time.

The district business manager said she also found seven of Nichols’ time cards that had been signed “Michele Lusk” but the signature was not in Lusk’s writing.

Superintendent Michael Ognosky told police he and Lusk had met with Nichols and her union representative on March 22 and that the woman had admitted in that meeting that she had falsified the time cards.

According to the affidavit, Nichols told Ognosky that she would complete a truthful time card and submit it to Lusk for approval. After it was approved, the time card was given back to Nichols for processing.

At that point, according to the police report, Nichols told Ognosky that she would then destroy the truthful time card and complete a second one with overtime hours and leave time deleted from it.

According to the affidavit, this allowed Nichols to collect a full week’s pay without any of her accrued leave deducted.

The payroll clerk would then sign Lusk’s name to the second time card and then process it, police reported.

Police noted Nichols was cooperative and told them she had full intentions of paying the school district back.

Nichols was arraigned by District Judge Jeffrey Hollister and waived her preliminary hearing. All charges were bound over to the Susquehanna County Court of Common Pleas. She was released on her own recognizance.

Ognosky said that Nichols had been suspended without pay.