We catch missed breaks for classroom aides, unpaid break premiums, and an empty violent incident log — then chase each one to a documented fix.
MicroForensics™ is built for California private schools, where aides can't leave the classroom, yet a meal break must start before the fifth hour of work ends (Labor Code §512). A missed or short break is caught the pay period it happens and chased to a documented fix — and when a lawyer's letter demanding records arrives, your custodian of records, the person on your team authorized to produce them, answers it from one place. No app your aides have to learn.
Free · 30 minutes · by phone or video. We tell you whether the records diagnostic, a fixed-fee review of your timecard, break and safety records, is worth doing for you, and what it costs. If it is not, we say so.
What MicroForensics is
MicroForensics reads the payroll and time clocks you already run, and Floburn operates the loop every pay period.
MicroForensics ingests your hourly timecard data, payroll, and related HR documents to flag missed breaks, unpaid break premiums, wage order errors, and open safety items, then chases each one to a documented fix. It is built to work with the existing payroll and timekeeping you already run, and Floburn runs it for you every pay period.
What it does
Five things, every pay period.
- Workers confirm and attest to the accuracy of their hours and breaks, among other labor compliance attestations, via existing tools you have in place that we configure or via custom interfaces we build for you. No one's pay ever depends on it.
- Written rules flag exceptions, such as a missed meal period, a missing rest break, or hours past a limit you set.
- Every flag is answered on the record. The correction is entered next to the original entry.
- When a worker misses breaks repeatedly, they and/or their managers get routed to training.
- Everything goes into one dated record that your designated custodian of records can export to answer a lawyer's letter demanding records from one place.
Three reasons a private school's break record comes up short when a lawyer asks for it.
- 01
An aide supervising children can’t take a duty-free lunch unless someone covers.
Donohue v. AMN Services (Cal. 2021) holds that time records showing missed, short, or late meal periods raise a rebuttable presumption of violation. Answering it takes evidence the time data doesn’t carry: an aide’s own account, the §226.7 premium where one was owed, and a dated note of the coverage change that followed.
- 02
The teacher exemption does not cover aides, aftercare, custodial or front-office staff.
Labor Code §515.8 exempts teachers only; a school’s hourly staff, a minority of its headcount and nearly all of its wage-and-hour exposure, carry the full meal, rest, overtime, and wage-statement machinery. The shared Education & Childcare filing category is up 27.1% year over year (Ankura/LWDA data through mid-2026) — directional, since no school-only split exists.
- 03
The teacher salary floor is pegged to district pay — and it moves.
Under §515.8, a full-time teacher must earn the greater of 100% of the lowest credentialed-teacher salary offered by any California district, or 70% of the lowest schedule salary in the district — or county office of education — where the school sits. A teacher paid less loses the exemption, whatever the employment letter says.
What we build on, and what we add.
- Administration
FACTS & Blackbaud, untouched
FACTS SIS — the former RenWeb — and Blackbaud run the student side: enrollment, grades, tuition. That is a different question from the wage-and-hour one, and it does not need to answer it. MicroForensics builds the employment-side record and leaves the admin stack exactly where it is.
- Timekeeping & payroll
The generic timeclock
School payroll runs on generic gear — a wall clock or app feeding Gusto, QuickBooks, Paychex, or ADP — and stays yours. We read the punches, change nothing at the clock, and reconcile §226 wage statements against the per-period attestation, which keeps a cadence of its own, decoupled from the payroll run.
- The record
Per-pay-period sign-off, in English or, where the crew needs it, Spanish
Every pay period, aides, aftercare, kitchen, and front-office staff attest that breaks were taken and hours are right. Every signature lands on a timestamped record.
We build the connector for your stack — by API where one exists, by export, SFTP, or structured manual entry where one doesn’t — scoped and priced in the records diagnostic.
Since July 1, 2024, Labor Code §6401.9 has required most California employers, schools included, to have a written workplace violence prevention plan, training, and a violent incident log kept five years and produced on request to employees and their representatives within 15 calendar days. MicroForensics routes a front-office incident report into the log and records what was done about it.
One production package — the export that answers the letter. Hours, not weeks.
A lawyer’s letter demanding records usually arrives before any lawsuit does, and a §2699 PAGA notice after it. When the letter lands, the authorized custodian of records on your team — not Floburn — produces one production package in hours, not weeks. Payroll, timekeeping, HR, and safety are reconciled into one record every pay period, so production is an export from one place rather than a search across several.
- 01The export runs in under a minute.Retrieval from one record, not assembly across systems.
- 02Your custodian of records reviews and validates it.
- 03Your lawyer, an owner, or both review it, if you want them to.
- 04Your side sends it to the lawyer who asked.
The hours in “hours, not weeks” are steps 02 and 03: people you choose, reading it before it goes out. Floburn never reviews, validates, sends, or holds it.
The package exists before the letter does — the timeline is a property of how the record is kept, not a promise about your matter. No outcome is guaranteed; every matter turns on its facts.
What goes in the package, and how it is produced→Why it matters to a California employer
The window for the 15% PAGA cap closes when an employee or their lawyer asks for records, not when the lawsuit does.
The Private Attorneys General Act (Labor Code §2698 et seq.) lets an aggrieved employee — one who personally suffered each of the violations alleged (§2699(c)(1)) — sue for civil penalties on behalf of themselves and other current or former employees affected by the same violations. Penalties run per aggrieved employee, per pay period:
- $100 by default (§2699(f)(2)(A)). These penalties are separate from any wages and premiums owed.
Under the 2024 reform (AB 2288 and SB 92), Labor Code §2699(g) caps those civil penalties at 15 percent where the employer took all reasonable steps before the PAGA notice, or before a records request under §226, §432 or §1198.5, which usually comes first; §2699(h) caps them at 30 percent for remediation within 60 days after the PAGA notice. A court judges whether your steps were reasonable, looking at all the circumstances, including your size and resources. A court may also go above either cap if keeping to it would be unjust, arbitrary and oppressive, or confiscatory (§2699(e)(2)). No outcome is guaranteed; every matter turns on its facts.
The law rewards finding and fixing violations early, and being able to prove you did. The statute names four examples of reasonable steps (§2699(g)(2)):
- periodic payroll audits with action taken in response
- lawful written policies
- supervisor training on Labor Code and wage order compliance
- corrective action as to supervisors
MicroForensics keeps a dated, exportable record of all four. The audit, policy and training records speak to the cap. Worker sign-offs speak to whether breaks were taken.
How we work with you
A free call, a records diagnostic, and then only what you choose.
The call is free. The records diagnostic is a fixed fee, quoted on the call, and its report is yours whatever you decide next. Every paid step after it is written down in a document you sign before it starts.
- 01
Free 30-minute call, by phone or video
The screening pass: one question per exposure area, with you and whoever runs payroll. No records, nothing to prepare. If the records diagnostic is not worth doing for you, we say so.
- 02
Records diagnostic, a fixed fee, quoted on the call
A half- or full-day working session with your records open. Within fourteen calendar days of the working session, a written report: what your records show, item by item; a roadmap sorted into what you can fix yourself, what needs a process change and what needs a lawyer; and a practice records request answered from your own records. We walk you through it, directly or through your lawyer.
- 03
Implementation, only if you choose it, a separate agreement, signed and priced then
Two to four weeks to go-live, on the payroll and timekeeping you already run.
- 04
Ongoing service, every pay period
Floburn runs it: a weekly digest, a monthly report and a quarterly review. Billed monthly per active worker, on an annual term.
- 05
If you leave, at any time
Your record goes with you in a closing export, as structured files your lawyer or a successor vendor can use without us. It is yours throughout, and never held back over money.
Could you find these records today?
- Two weeks of time records exactly as the system exports them, unrounded if the system can do it
- One pay stub for someone who worked a normal week
- Whatever serves as the employee handbook, even if it is three years old
- The workplace violence prevention plan and its violent incident log, and the injury and illness prevention program, whatever state they are in
Anything you cannot find is itself a finding.
Private school questions, answered.
01Our teachers are salaried and exempt. Doesn’t that cover the school?
It covers teachers — if the duties test is met and the salary floor holds. That floor moves with district pay, so exemption status is an annual check, not a hiring-day decision. It never covered your hourly staff, nonprofit or not, which is where the exposure sits.
02Aftercare and lunch duty run on part-timers. Does this really reach them?
Yes. Part-time hourly employees carry the same meal-and-rest machinery as full-timers — the rules turn on hours worked in the day, not on status. A part-timer’s short break is flagged and answered on the record the same way as anyone else’s.
03We run FACTS (or Blackbaud). Can’t the attestation live there?
It lives on the employment side, beside the timeclock and payroll records MicroForensics reads. FACTS SIS and Blackbaud hold the student record, which answers a different question from the wage-and-hour one; the admin stack sees no change.
04The business office is two people and the board meets quarterly. Who actually runs this?
Floburn does. We build the flows on your existing timeclock and payroll, operate them, and update the rules as California law changes. The business officer sees the exceptions and reviews the record. A slow board isn’t a blocker: The records diagnostic stands on its own, and you can take the report and act on it yourselves. Timing is the one thing a quarterly board calendar can cost you. The caps, and what a court decides, are set out above.
05We already have a lawyer’s letter or a PAGA notice. Can we still start?
Yes. Call your lawyer first: What the letter or notice means for you, and what to do about it, is for them to decide. Then book a free 30-minute call, and bring them if you like; tell us the date it arrived. With a matter open, your lawyer decides whether the records diagnostic runs through them or directly with Floburn, where its findings are discoverable. The sooner the record starts, the more pay periods it covers.
Free 30-minute call.
Tell us what you run and what prompted the call. The records diagnostic can run directly with Floburn or through your lawyer.
Free · 30 minutes · by phone or video. We tell you whether the records diagnostic, a fixed-fee review of your timecard, break and safety records, is worth doing for you, and what it costs. If it is not, we say so.
Floburn Inc. is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. Counsel advises Floburn on system design and does not represent your company; retain your own counsel for advice specific to your situation.