The Idaho Education Association has successfully won back wages for a Dietrich school employee who was fired after asking about overtime pay that he had not received.

Benjamin Flores worked for the Dietrich School District from 2003 through January 2010. His duties, which included maintaining the school boilers during the heating season and irrigation systems during the summer, consistently required that he work more than 40 hours per week.

The district’s business manager instructed him to submit timesheets for only 40 hours per week, regardless of how much work he did. Two weeks after Flores took up the matter with district administration, he was told he’d be replaced.

Attorney James Piotrowski, acting on behalf of Flores and the IEA, won a settlement for Flores under the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act and Idaho Wage Claim Act.

Piotrowski said the district argued that it did not owe Flores overtime pay because he was allowed to live in a storage shed on school district property for about two years. The case was settled through mediation before it went to trial.