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Oakland City University employees are expected to receive a paycheck on Friday, several weeks after the struggling university was sued over its failure to pay employees for all of the hours they worked, according to WEHT/WTVW in Evansville.
Oakland City President Ron Dempsey told WEHT in an email that the university will soon be printing checks to be available by Friday.
Employees saw their paychecks delayed in mid-May because of a bank transfer issue, according to the university. Todd Mosby, the university’s associate vice president for development, marketing and communications, told WEHT at the time that the university was working on the issue, but he did not give a timeline as to when it would be resolved.
Two university employees have since filed lawsuits against the university, saying they hadn’t been paid in nearly two months.
On June 1, plaintiff Chelsea Price, who works as a women’s soccer coach at Oakland City, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District against the university that said she hadn’t been paid since April 27. In a lawsuit seeking class-action status, she estimated that more than 100 university employees had not been paid, either.
On June 8, plaintiff James Wilder, a donor relations and marketing assistant, sued the university in Gibson Superior Court; he claimed he hadn’t been paid for at least three weeks.
It is unclear what will happen with the lawsuits now that the university is expected to pay employees. The Indiana Lawyer reached out to Dempsey and Mosby but did not immediately hear back.
The Indiana Lawyer also reached out to attorney Weston Overturf, who is representing the school in the lawsuits, but did not immediately hear back.
On June 18, Overturf requested an enlargement of time to file a response to Wilder’s complaint due to Overturf having only recently been retained to represent the school in the case.
On July 21, the university filed a response to Price’s complaint in federal court, denying many of the allegations it said are insufficiently specific to formulate a response, including that it violated the Fair Labor Standards Act and state wage payment laws.
Earlier this spring, the university announced it would be laying off more than 100 employees due to ongoing financial troubles.
In April, Oakland City filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, with the Indiana Department of Workforce Development, stating it would lay of 167 employees beginning June 1, according to reporting by Inside INdiana Business. At the time, the filing was only a precaution, Mosby said.
A May 19 news release from the university said the layoffs would be effective May 31 but didn’t specify how many employees would be laid off.
The university also suspended undergraduate programs for the 2026-2027 academic year but said it is preparing to resume them in the 2027-2028 academic year, according to Inside INdiana Business. The school’s graduate programs will remain in place.
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