Ex-workers contractor ICF
Employees not paid overtime, plaintiffs say
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ICF International’s corporate chain holds contracts worth more than $912 million for management of the $10.3 billion Road Home program for the Louisiana Recovery Authority.
Some of that money goes to dozens of ICF’s subcontractors.
But a handful of former Road Home employees is suing the ICF chain and a subcontractor for a bigger slice of that pie.
The former Road Home employees allege that ICF, of Virginia, and some of its subcontractors, which were hired to help victims of the 2005 hurricanes, bilked hundreds of workers out of millions of dollars in overtime payments.
ICF officials deny those allegations in court filings in New Orleans.
ICF corporate officials in Baton Rouge and Virginia declined to expand on those denials.
“As a matter of policy, we do not comment on specific pending litigation,” Gentry Brann, ICF International’s vice president and director of communications and external affairs for its Road Home division, said in an e-mail message.
Brann said the same policy applies to other federal lawsuits in Baton Rouge and New Orleans in which former Road Home employees allege they were forced out of their jobs for revealing over-billing practices or because of race, age or gender discrimination.
ICF has denied all of those allegations in formal filings in each of those suits.
The plaintiffs in the overtime suit say they helped process applications from Louisiana residents for emergency funds to help repair or rebuild homes and small rental properties damaged or destroyed in 2005 by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Plaintiffs also have attached records to their lawsuit that show investigators for the U.S. Department of Labor determined in 2007 that ICF Emergency Management Services and one of its subcontractors, Quadel Housing Services Inc., of Washington, D.C., had overworked and underpaid some Road Home employees.
Because of those investigators’ findings, court records show, the ICF subsidiary and Quadel agreed to pay more than $225,000 in overtime payments to about 400 Road Home employees who worked in Louisiana between August 2006 and April 2007. Labor Department investigators concluded the companies improperly labeled those employees as administrators, exempt from overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Like ICF, Quadel officials have denied the overtime allegations in the suit.
Both ICF and Quadel now challenge the Labor Department’s investigative findings, according to a statement entered in the court record by U.S. Magistrate Judge Daniel E. Knowles III.
Knowles has ruled on some of the motions in the case, which was filed in January with U.S. District Judge Carl J. Barbier.
Ascension Parish resident Laila Kuperman worked for ICF from August 2006 to January 2008, according to an affidavit she signed for the civil lawsuit that bears her name as lead plaintiff. For the first nine months of that period, she wrote, none of her duties were supervisory.
Kuperman said she was paid a weekly salary of $455.
“I was instructed by my managers and/or supervisors to only enter 40 hours of time … regardless of actual time worked,” Kuperman said in her affidavit. “I would often work up to approximately 30 hours in excess of my regular 40-hour work week.”
In August 2007, after Labor Department investigators reported that ICF officials agreed to pay $194,880 in back overtime to 225 employees, Kuperman received a letter from the ICF’s human resources department.
According to an exhibit in her court suit, the letter said Kuperman was entitled to $555 in back overtime from ICF.
Instead of settling for that sum, Kuperman and two other former Road Home workers filed suit in January. They are seeking class-action status from Barbier. If that status is granted, other current or former employees could add their names to the list of plaintiffs in the suit.
Paul Rainwater was appointed this year by Gov. Bobby Jindal as executive director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority.
Rainwater did not return calls this week.
But Christina Stephens, the LRA’s press secretary, noted that ICF was fined more than $1 million in July for failing to meet performance benchmarks established by the LRA.
“We inherited this contractor,” from the administration of former Gov. Kathleen Blanco, Stephens added.
Stephens noted that the Road Home program has distributed more than $7.1 billion in federal funds to 118,335 Louisiana property owners.
But Stephens had no comment on overtime disputes or allegations of over-billing.
ICF’s Brann said: “We want to emphasize that we view these matters with the utmost seriousness, and we have in place rigorous internal controls and systems to prevent the kinds of things alleged from occurring.
“Actions in violation of our policies would result in termination,” Brann added in the e-mail. “We also note that since its inception, the Road Home program has been repeatedly and thoroughly scrutinized by several independent auditors.
“We are proud of the progress that has been made in the implementation of this program,” Brann said.
In their suit, Kuperman and co-plaintiffs, Catherine Z. Lyles, of East Baton Rouge Parish, and Jason J. Ricks, of Orleans Parish, say they were employed essentially as intake personnel at an ICF office in Baton Rouge. They contend they were not supervisors or administrators.
After the suit was filed in January, seven other Road Home employees asked Barbier to add their names as plaintiffs.
Plaintiffs contend that the refusal by ICF and its subcontractors to pay overtime to intake employees enabled those companies “to reap millions of dollars in wage savings.”
Initially, the plaintiffs say in their suit, their jobs were formally classified as housing advisors.
After the Labor Department determined that housing advisors were entitled to overtime pay, the plaintiffs say, “ICF and Quadel created the virtually identical Analyst position … but classified that position as exempt from the payment of overtime wages.”
Some of that money goes to dozens of ICF’s subcontractors.
But a handful of former Road Home employees is suing the ICF chain and a subcontractor for a bigger slice of that pie.
The former Road Home employees allege that ICF, of Virginia, and some of its subcontractors, which were hired to help victims of the 2005 hurricanes, bilked hundreds of workers out of millions of dollars in overtime payments.
ICF officials deny those allegations in court filings in New Orleans.
ICF corporate officials in Baton Rouge and Virginia declined to expand on those denials.
“As a matter of policy, we do not comment on specific pending litigation,” Gentry Brann, ICF International’s vice president and director of communications and external affairs for its Road Home division, said in an e-mail message.
Brann said the same policy applies to other federal lawsuits in Baton Rouge and New Orleans in which former Road Home employees allege they were forced out of their jobs for revealing over-billing practices or because of race, age or gender discrimination.
ICF has denied all of those allegations in formal filings in each of those suits.
The plaintiffs in the overtime suit say they helped process applications from Louisiana residents for emergency funds to help repair or rebuild homes and small rental properties damaged or destroyed in 2005 by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Plaintiffs also have attached records to their lawsuit that show investigators for the U.S. Department of Labor determined in 2007 that ICF Emergency Management Services and one of its subcontractors, Quadel Housing Services Inc., of Washington, D.C., had overworked and underpaid some Road Home employees.
Because of those investigators’ findings, court records show, the ICF subsidiary and Quadel agreed to pay more than $225,000 in overtime payments to about 400 Road Home employees who worked in Louisiana between August 2006 and April 2007. Labor Department investigators concluded the companies improperly labeled those employees as administrators, exempt from overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Like ICF, Quadel officials have denied the overtime allegations in the suit.
Both ICF and Quadel now challenge the Labor Department’s investigative findings, according to a statement entered in the court record by U.S. Magistrate Judge Daniel E. Knowles III.
Knowles has ruled on some of the motions in the case, which was filed in January with U.S. District Judge Carl J. Barbier.
Ascension Parish resident Laila Kuperman worked for ICF from August 2006 to January 2008, according to an affidavit she signed for the civil lawsuit that bears her name as lead plaintiff. For the first nine months of that period, she wrote, none of her duties were supervisory.
Kuperman said she was paid a weekly salary of $455.
“I was instructed by my managers and/or supervisors to only enter 40 hours of time … regardless of actual time worked,” Kuperman said in her affidavit. “I would often work up to approximately 30 hours in excess of my regular 40-hour work week.”
In August 2007, after Labor Department investigators reported that ICF officials agreed to pay $194,880 in back overtime to 225 employees, Kuperman received a letter from the ICF’s human resources department.
According to an exhibit in her court suit, the letter said Kuperman was entitled to $555 in back overtime from ICF.
Instead of settling for that sum, Kuperman and two other former Road Home workers filed suit in January. They are seeking class-action status from Barbier. If that status is granted, other current or former employees could add their names to the list of plaintiffs in the suit.
Paul Rainwater was appointed this year by Gov. Bobby Jindal as executive director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority.
Rainwater did not return calls this week.
But Christina Stephens, the LRA’s press secretary, noted that ICF was fined more than $1 million in July for failing to meet performance benchmarks established by the LRA.
“We inherited this contractor,” from the administration of former Gov. Kathleen Blanco, Stephens added.
Stephens noted that the Road Home program has distributed more than $7.1 billion in federal funds to 118,335 Louisiana property owners.
But Stephens had no comment on overtime disputes or allegations of over-billing.
ICF’s Brann said: “We want to emphasize that we view these matters with the utmost seriousness, and we have in place rigorous internal controls and systems to prevent the kinds of things alleged from occurring.
“Actions in violation of our policies would result in termination,” Brann added in the e-mail. “We also note that since its inception, the Road Home program has been repeatedly and thoroughly scrutinized by several independent auditors.
“We are proud of the progress that has been made in the implementation of this program,” Brann said.
In their suit, Kuperman and co-plaintiffs, Catherine Z. Lyles, of East Baton Rouge Parish, and Jason J. Ricks, of Orleans Parish, say they were employed essentially as intake personnel at an ICF office in Baton Rouge. They contend they were not supervisors or administrators.
After the suit was filed in January, seven other Road Home employees asked Barbier to add their names as plaintiffs.
Plaintiffs contend that the refusal by ICF and its subcontractors to pay overtime to intake employees enabled those companies “to reap millions of dollars in wage savings.”
Initially, the plaintiffs say in their suit, their jobs were formally classified as housing advisors.
After the Labor Department determined that housing advisors were entitled to overtime pay, the plaintiffs say, “ICF and Quadel created the virtually identical Analyst position … but classified that position as exempt from the payment of overtime wages.”
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