Employer accidentally split my salary across 11 months instead of 12
employment attorney Colorado Aug 18, 2026
I just moved. Current location: Wisconsin. Previous employer location: Colorado. I am a teacher, so I work ten months of the year but my contract allows me to request my pay be dispersed throughout the year. I choose to do this so I can rely on monthly income even in summer. According to my contract, my salary was supposed to be split evenly across 24 payments from September 1st 2025 until August 31st 2026. However, my school made a mistake and instead set my salary to be dispersed in 22 payments across eleven months instead, with the last paycheck being July 31st instead of August 31st. This means I will not be getting any paychecks in for the entire month of August. I did not find this out until today when I reached out to my school to find out why I wasn't paid August 15th. They looked into it and admitted it was their mistake. I now need to somehow pay all of my bills, rent, groceries, etc with no income for an entire month. I already live paycheck to paycheck. I don't know what I'm going to do. Is there even any legal recourse here? I suspect the answer is no, but at this point I'm desperate and checking every option. TIA
