Eight students at Ball State Landscape services noticed something peculiar when they received their first summer paychecks in early June.
The problem, related to tax withholdings, affected other student employees as well, but should be corrected this coming pay day.
Some employees who were taking classes had taxes for Federal Insurance Contributions Act (Social Security) and Medicare taken out of their checks, while others not enrolled in summer courses had been exempted.
Deborah Tudor, director of the Office of Payroll and Employee Benefits, said students who are taking classes at least half-time, or six hours, should not have those taxes taken out. But other students must pay them.
"It really hinges on IRS regulations," she said.
In addition, student employees have taxes for the nation, state and county withheld from their checks.
Kim Nagle, a senior who works for Ball State Landscaping, is not taking any classes this summer, but she was not charged for FICA or Medicare.
"It was a program glitch, and it has been taken care of," said Tudor. "The program was looking at the wrong file."
Tudor said any discrepancies will be corrected in each employee's next paycheck, or in an additional check the student will receive if no longer an employee.
Students will be credited a refund for the tax if they were wrongly charged. If they received too much money, it will be removed from their next check.
Nagle said she and several other student employees went to talk with representatives of the payroll office after noticing the discrepancy, and they were not told what the problem was or how it would be resolved.
"What they have to understand is that when something like that goes wrong, we have to find out what the problem is," Tudor said. "It can take some time."
Nagle has not been contacted by payroll about the problem since then, she said.
"We have not tried to call individual students because, as you can imagine, it would just be so time consuming," Tudor said.
Nagle said her main concern is getting an explanation from payroll about what taxes she should be paying.
"If my next paycheck has five things taken out, I am going to be very, very upset," Nagle said. "Especially if there is no explanation. I think all we're really looking for is documentation saying, 'This is how students are paid, and this is how taxes are taken out.'"
Nagle said she hopes this problem will make student employees pay attention to their paychecks in the future.
"There are a lot of students who just get paid and don't even realize what taxes get taken out," she said.
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