School board member Kay Norman settles employment tax questions

The N.C. Employment Security Commission and Kay Wright Norman have resolved questions that resulted in two misdemeanor citations against the school board member.

Norman, a member of the Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education, operates the Learning Curves Child Development Center in East Spencer.

She said Thursday that state officials had not explained previously that she could bring her ledger books to local Employment Security Commission offices and resolve the problem.

She had been relying on Advantage, a private payroll company, which misplaced the information or filed incorrect reports.

On Tuesday, a Rowan County Sheriff’s deputy served Norman with two citations saying she had not provided required payroll information reports for the third and fourth quarters of 2000. The reports are essential for the state to maintain employment records for Norman’s five employees.

After talking to a Salisbury Post reporter and a state official Thursday morning, Norman took her records to the Employment Security Commission office.

In the end, Norman said, the payroll tax involved was “a little over $200.”

“I learned a lot more about payroll taxes in the past 24 hours than I’ve known in the years prior to this,” she said. And she emphasized she has always had the information and money available.

“My staff was the most disconcerted about” the citations and a Salisbury Post article on Thursday.

“They felt it had been given a twist, that it had been willfully done,” Norman said. “I have always protected the agency and the integrity of the agency.”

She also said an Employment Security Commission official has talked with the payroll company she had hired to handle that reporting, to avoid repeating the problem.