Eight of the 18 Pioneer Ambassadors (PA) did not receive compensation by Nov. 21 — the date assured by the university — according to all sources involved.
Instead, the university mailed the eight PAs missing compensation a check on Nov. 21, which most students received in the following days.
As previously reported by The Globe, none of the PAs were compensated by the dates outlined in the contract issued by Point Park.
Keith Paylo, vice president of student affairs, said that a graduate assistant’s resignation was one of the reasons why the payments were delayed for months. The assistant, Allison Plassio, worked under Paylo in student affairs.
“As a graduate student, you’re responsible for all paperwork,” Paylo said. He added that it is also student affairs’ executive assistant Charlene Cusick’s responsibility to process paperwork.
Cusick declined to comment.
In an email sent by Paylo to Gianna Sites, a junior accounting major and PA, Paylo said it’s a “standard practice of the university” that first-time university employees receive a check rather than a direct deposit.
But Sites said this isn’t her first time being paid by the university.
Sites is a second-year PA, and said she was paid by Point Park for the first time last year through a check for her participation in the program.
But this year, Sites said she selected the direct deposit option when reapplying for the program.
“I’ve been in the program for two years now,” Sites said. “So there’s no reason why I would not be paid properly.”
Despite her status as a second-year PA and an on-campus resident, Sites said the check arrived in her parent’s mailbox on Nov. 23.
“They had already violated the contract,” Sites said. “Then the date they said we would be paid comes around and they violate that.”
According to Sites, most of the information PAs received about their missing payments was delivered by Pioneer Ambassador Coordinator (PAC) and chair of the program, Savannah Ikach.
“I don’t think there was one issue that specifically caused any of it,” Ikach said. “I think a lot of things confounded together.”
Ikach said she is the person who bridges the gap between PAs and student affairs. When PAs have questions she can not answer, Ikach refers them to either Cusick or Paylo.
Sites said after not receiving direct communication from the university, she visited Cusick in her office where they got engaged in a verbal altercation.
“She couldn’t give me a straight answer,” Sites said. “She kept saying she didn’t know [what happened].”
Will Bevense, a sophomore acting major and first-year PA, said he selected the direct deposit option when applying for the program and was unaware he would be paid through check regardless.
As of Nov. 30, Bevense said he had not received a check.
According to Sites and Bevense, no notice was given by the university that they would be receiving an alternate form of payment — and that it would not arrive to them on Nov. 21.
“We have not gotten any explanation as to why this happened,” Bevense said.
“I just wanted to be paid properly and I wanted communication throughout it,” Sites said.
Paylo said he doesn’t know why second year students who selected direct deposit were paid by way of check.
He said he prefers students speak to him directly about any issues they may have with their pay.
“My door is open anytime that students have questions about any of these types of issues,” Paylo said.
