Payrolls

WASHINGTON -- Many U.S. employers could face a payroll tax of 12 percent or more to finance health care reform under a plan now being considered by the White House, particularly if President Clinton adopts the most generous of three possible benefits packages his advisers have designed, sources said yesterday.Until now, administration officials in private conversations have focused on 7 percent as the probable payroll levy on most employers and about 1.5 percent on workers, with special allowances to ease the burden on small businesses and low-wage earners.

HURRICANE KATRINA should not disrupt federal workers' paychecks and retirement plans, even though the government has abandoned its flooded New Orleans-based processing center, officials said. Workers at the National Finance Center processed Monday's payroll for a half-million federal workers and then fled the city with the magnetic data tapes in hand to a backup site in Philadelphia, which will deliver the next round of paychecks. "Right now, we're just trying to reach out and account for our employees," said Ed Loyd, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs the center just east of downtown New Orleans.

Sears, Roebuck & Co. launched one of corporate America's biggest job cutbacks in recent years yesterday, announcing that it will slash about 21,000 office and receiving room positions at its stores across the United States.Sears, by some measures the nation's biggest merchant, with Baltimore-area stores in White Marsh, Hunt Valley, Columbia, Security Square and Glen Burnie, said in November that beginning this month it would dismiss or reassign thousands of the non-sales employees at its 863 U.S. stores to streamline operations.

TORONTO -- People with knowledge of last week's collective bargaining negotiations confirmed last night that the NHL owners have offered the players a deal that doesn't include a payroll tax.It is the tax, which the players call a salary cap in disguise, that has been the deal breaker thus far in keeping the players locked out and postponing the start of the season for 81 days, as of yesterday.The league also has offered the NHL Players Association a deal that includes a salary tax, but the player representatives from the 26 teams emphatically rejected that approach last night when they met at a lakefront hotel.

Mary P. Lawler, a payroll administrator at Bon Secours Hospital, died Tuesday of rheumatoid arthritis at her family's home in Glenwood. She was 38. Born in Halethorpe, she grew up in Glenwood and graduated from Mount de Sales Academy in 1984. She was named Most Congenial Student her senior year. She began volunteering at Bon Secours while in high school and took a full-time job there after graduating. She was known as Mary Pat around the hospital and was awarded its Kindly Care Award for dedicated service in 1994.

I ONCE lived in a rundown Chicago neighborhood where crumbling buildings and liquor stores lined the streets. Check-cashing stores sat on every other block. More than 10 percent of U.S. families don't have checking accounts, according to the Federal Reserve's most recent survey of consumer finances. They rely on currency exchanges and similar storefront businesses, which typically take a cut of 2.5 percent, and as much as 5 percent to 6 percent, of the checks they cash. The fees are much higher than the cost of maintaining a checking account at a bank.

For years, members of the Schmoke administration repeated the premise as if chanting a mantra: Baltimore would have to cut its municipal work force, they said, in order to cope with spiraling costs and sluggish tax revenue growth.But last week, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke indicated that the chant might soon fade from City Hall. Assuming that his plan to eliminate 1,186 positions from the city's 1992 operating budget survives the Board of Estimates and the City Council, Mr. Schmoke said, the city will have gone as far as it can in reducing its work force.

The Western Maryland College Honor and Conduct Board found 17 students -- including 12 athletes -- guilty of falsifying time sheets for college work-study jobs in the intramural program.The board, consisting of two faculty and two student members, completed the hearing last Friday, following a campus investigation that began in December after a routine monthly check of student payroll statements turned up discrepancies.Joyce Muller, the school's director of public information, wouldn't release any names.

Chris Hill stood and faced the jury. "Not guilty." He bent to make a note on his yellow legal pad, just like the lawyers do.The former Arnold home builder whose business collapsed under revelations of his multimillion dollar fraud, had been brought into criminal court on charges he wrote about $3,000 in bad checks.Christopher H. Hill, an attorney until he was disbarred in 1987 after being named in a $24 million legal malpractice suit, represented himself.His form may have been a little rusty and he may have squirmed and fidgeted while the prosecutor issued his final arguments, but Hill argued his case and won."

County police arrested the head of the Roger Carter Neighborhood Center in Ellicott City yesterday and charged the county Recreation and Parks Department employee with stealing payroll checks totaling $4,330.50.Alan Garard Bacon, 35, of the 9400 block of Merryrest Road in Columbia was accused of cashing 18 checks made out to Anthony D. Coleman, a worker in the county Bureau of Highways. Coleman is named inthe charging documents as Bacon's brother.Bacon, facing 18 counts of theft, could not be reached for comment on the charges.