School district employee discovers phone company overcharge
By Stephanie Bertholdo bertholdo@theacorn.com

JANN HENDRY/Acorn Newspapers WATCHDOG- Don McCombs investigated and found an estimated $134,000 in unnecessary telephone fees and charges.

It pays to check your phone bill. At the Las Virgenes Unified School District the payoff was big- very big.

Donald McCombs, a cable technician for the district, discovered that the phone company had been overcharging the school district for more than a decade. AT&T agreed to a partial reimbursement of $47,000.

Between the AT&T's charges and the government fees that were wrongly attached to the school district's bill, the total sum owed for the past four years has been estimated at $134,000.

McCombs decided to review the bills because the district had several phone systems operating at different schools.

"I wanted to look at the bills to straighten up the different systems," he said.

The bills were augmented with a variety of fees, including federal charges for data lines and a fee for a government program called Universal Service Funding for Schools and Libraries. The so-called E-rate program was created as a result of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. It was established to connect schools and libraries to the Internet.

McCombs' review of the AT&T bill was prompted by his belief that some of the phone and data lines weren't needed.

"I noticed immediately that we were being charged for things we didn't have," McCombs said.

For example, a "tie-line," or connection between the district and the high schools had been replaced in 1996, but charges for the line continued for many years.

After months of trying to unravel the charges, McCombs presented his findings to district officials.

Donald Zimring, Las Virgenes Unified School District deputy superintendent, said a law prevents customers from recouping overages that are more than three years old, but that LVUSD received four year of reimbursement due to the length of the negotiations.

The school district was repaid $80,000, which includes the $47,000 from AT&T and $33,000 in other fees and surcharges. LVUSD says it could recoup as much as $126,000 from the billing fiasco.

McCombs said AT&T attributed the overcharges to the switching of school district phone systems.

"I don't think AT&T did this on purpose," Zimring said. "It does underscore what happens when systems become so complex that lay people cannot understand or appropriately audit charges for these types of services."

According to the settlement, "AT&T agrees to recalculate the billing of the services related to the dispute and will refund to governmental agencies the necessary . . .amounts as appropriate."

The school district's monthly bill has been cut in half since McCombs' discovery, from $18,000 to $9,000.

"It's more important than the $126,000 we're getting back because we're not putting it out," McCombs said.

"While I can't disclose the specifics of the agreement because of a confidentiality clause, I can say that this demonstrates what happens when you have bright, skilled people who genuinely care abut protecting the interests of our children and our community," Zimring said. "Mr. McCombs did all of those services."

McCombs said the experience should serve as a reminder to all. He said mistakes are harder to find with larger companies because one person takes care of the phone system while another person takes care of the bill, he said.

"People we were talking with were doing their best to get this thing taken care of," McCombs said. "Their hands were tied with the company policy that could only go back three years."

McCombs, 52, previously worked at the Point Mugu Naval Base testing missiles. Prior to coming to the school district he worked for Vision Business Communications doing cable and phone installation and repair.

Besides overseeing 13 cable and phone line systems at the school district, McCombs also is in charge of four computer technicians.

He now includes phone bill reviews as part of his job description.