Audit four payroll records: KQED's settlement is the map
Hourly wage-theft exposure usually hides in four payroll records, and those records should be audited as a set.
The settlement points to four payroll records
For hourly payroll, wage-theft exposure usually sits in four records. KQED agreed to pay $895,000 to settle a class-action wage-theft lawsuit. The proposed class covers more than 580 KQED hourly workers employed from August 2019 through May 2025. Judge Ethan Schulman of San Francisco Superior Court gave preliminary approval on May 4. The court set a final approval hearing for Nov. 4.
The core accusation was that time records appeared to show meal breaks while employees kept working off the clock. A separate class action filed in September 2025 alleged off-the-clock work, incorrect regular-rate overtime, noncompliant meal and rest periods, and inaccurate itemized wage statements. The settlement is a map because the claims match the documents payroll teams already keep. Those four allegations line up with the four-document wage-theft audit checklist: meal-period timekeeping, off-the-clock verification, overtime math, and wage statements.
Audit one pay period, not the whole ledger
A payroll records audit works best when it follows one sample. Pick one recent pay period with straight-time and overtime shifts. Include an employee who worked through a meal break, an employee who worked overtime, and an employee whose pay stub was reviewed.
Do not hunt for every error. Look for agreement among the four records. Agreement means the system is probably working. A gap usually sits in the timekeeping, not the payroll calculation.
Keep the sample small enough to finish without stopping payroll. A payroll manager can pull timekeeping, the pay stub, and the overtime calculation quickly. A larger sample becomes a project; a smaller one may miss the pattern. The audit is good practice, not a legal requirement, but it should be fast enough to repeat regularly.
Run the four-document checklist on that sample
California's recordkeeping statute requires employers to keep accurate payroll records and produce them on request. Run the same sample through all four checks, in the order below: meal-period timekeeping, where a clean punch can hide a missed break; off-the-clock verification, because the clock only records what someone enters; overtime math, where a wrong regular rate hides in the total; and wage statements, the document the employee sees.
- Meal-period timekeeping. Pick one shift over five hours. The record should show an uninterrupted 30-minute unpaid meal break; a shift over ten hours should show a second meal break; and each four-hour work segment should show a paid 10-minute rest break. California Labor Code section 226.7 provides a one-hour premium for each workday in which a proper meal or rest break is not provided. Check the break against the shift length, not just the punch.
- Off-the-clock verification. Compare the first and last punch to the work that actually happened. California wage-theft law treats unpaid work before the first punch, after the last punch, during a meal break, or in required training as wage theft. Work in those windows makes the time record incomplete. This check catches work that never reaches the clock.
- Overtime math. Recalculate the pay period at one and one-half times the regular rate after eight daily or 40 weekly hours, and at double time after 12 daily hours or eight hours on a seventh consecutive workday. Use the hours in the timekeeping record. Unpaid overtime often shows up as a small difference in the total. A mismatch between the payroll total and the recalculation points to the math, not the employee.
- Wage statements. Compare one pay stub to the fields required by California wage-statement law. Each pay stub must show gross wages, hours worked, deductions, net pay, pay-period dates, employer name and address, and employee name. Check the stub against the pay period, not just the amount. A missing field makes the stub harder to reconcile.
Fix what the sample shows
When a check fails, separate the legal requirement from the fix. The requirements above are the law; the correction note is the paper trail. The audit is the tool that shows whether the record supports those requirements.
When the record is wrong, correct it, pay the wage, and note the correction. Document the correction in the payroll file. Keep the note short, but make it specific. A note that says what changed, when it changed, and why it changed is good practice. It also makes the next audit easier.