It’s been more than a decade since a class-action lawsuit was filed in circuit court on behalf of roughly 9,000 substitute teachers who say the state underpaid them for years. The court ruled in their favor, and the state is set to start doling out back pay totaling about $15 million. 

But the earliest date the substitute teachers can expect get paychecks in the mail is March 5 of next year, according to a press release from state Attorney General David Louie.

That’s a lot later than time estimates provided in a “Kokua Line” column printed in today’s Star-Advertiser edition in which the teachers’ attorney Paul Alston suggested the payments could come in as soon as mid-December.

The next few steps are complex and time-consuming and include getting approval of the settlement agreement, calculating the taxes and benefits for each teacher and processing — “a massive undertaking that will require a reasonable amount of time to implement and accomplish,” the press release says. 

Photo courtesy 401K 2013 via Flickr

— Alia Wong