W-2 Processing Glitch Creates Confusion Seven Percent of 3,600 Forms Incorrectly Addressed

Author: Campus Editor in Chief

About 250 Middlebury College employees received their co-workers' W-2 forms last week, compromising the confidentiality of this important tax-related information. Treasurer and Vice President of Administration Bob Huth alerted the College community to the processing glitch by e-mail during the February academic recess.

In the first of three e-mail notices, Huth explained that the 3,600 W-2 forms postmarked early last week were incorrect "due to a print processing error and contained personal information of someone else within the Middlebury College community."

While an envelope may have been addressed to one employee, the W-2 enclosed may have listed another College employee's information, including annual wages.

Further investigation revealed that only 7 percent of the forms were incorrectly addressed, but Huth asked all employees to discard the original W-2 they received from the College and await a revised version.

"Your cooperation in this regard will be appreciated not only by me, but also by other members of the College community," Huth wrote, adding that destroying the original form would "avoid confusion and preserve privacy."

Revised forms were sent to all College employees last Friday with a blue sticker to denote that they were corrected copies.

On Monday, the Treasurer's Office assigned a process team to investigate the cause of the mishap. "We need to find out what needs to be done to make sure that this does not happen again," Huth affirmed in an interview with The Middlebury Campus. "We are being methodical in our approach to this and using it as an educational experience."

He noted that the problem did not stem from the implementation of the new Banner operating system.

This year's forms were generated by the AS400 system, which the College has been using for 10 years. "What happened this year," said Huth, "could have happened in any of the past 10 years. I call it serendipity."

He continued, "What we need to have in place, and what we will have in place, is a check that prevents human mistakes from becoming problems."

The "check mechanisms" he plans to implement would "make sure mistakes are caught as soon as they are made and before the public is aware."

Huth received almost 30 inquiries from faculty and staff members about the incident, but only one expressed "strong concern," he said.

The generally mild reaction of College employees is indicative of the "recognition that we have a trusting and honorable community where people would protect others' personal information," speculated Huth.

Acting Provost Alison Byerly observed that there "have been fewer complaints than one would expect, given that of course no one is happy about the idea that someone else has seen their personal financial information."

Byerly, whose W-2 was among those incorrectly addressed, reported that "a colleague was courteous enough to leave me a phone message letting me know he had my W-2."

She continued, "I didn't have much of a personal reaction, as I felt sure that the person who received my information would discard it and keep it confidential, but of course as an administrator I was concerned about how many might be affected by the W-2 error."

After finding that only 7 percent of the forms were incorrect, Byerly said she was "relieved to learn that the problem was not as global as we had originally feared."

While "you couldn't blame anyone for being upset," she commented that "most of the people I've heard from have been pretty tolerant. It's such a large mistake, it's almost too big to complain about."

Director of Service Learning and Student Employment Tiffany Sargent, while not personally affected by the incorrectly addressed forms, said, "I am sure everyone involved is distressed by what happened."

After learning of the incident, she posed specific questions to Huth's office and received "quick and direct responses" and concluded that "everyone is trying hard to work through this difficult and unfortunate challenge."

As Huth put it, quoting Friedrich Nietzsche, "If it doesn't kill you, it just makes you stronger." And while "it's not something you like to go through, we are taking appropriate action to ensure that [a W-2 processing error] does not happen again."