NEW ORLEANS – At 57 years old, Alton Simpson is a watchful eye in his quiet St. Bernard neighborhood. 

For more than three decades, he also helped watch over New Orleans public schools as a maintenance worker. That is, up until Hurricane Katrina.

"We weren't laid off, and we never were notified on what happened with us,” Simpson said.  “We tried to get answers but they just let everyone go."

Simpson said after he was forced to retire, he assumed his personnel records would be let go too.

"Well, you would think it would all be discarded, shredded," he said.

But his social security number was one of dozens, if not hundreds, that Eyewitness News discovered inside an old New Orleans public school warehouse, a facility seemingly untouched since the storm.

The water line is still clear nearly four years later, and a WWL-TV news crew found the gate leading to the complex unlocked, and the entrance wide open.

Inside were countless boxes filled with confidential information, not to mention stacks of other documents lying on the ground, listing payroll information, worker evaluations, notices of personnel action, and investigations into employee discrimination.

Full names, home addresses, and social security numbers can be seen on document after document.

“Well, it's a little shocking,” said Wade Rathke, the leader of Local 100, Service Employees International Union, the workers union that represents maintenance employees for the Orleans Parish school district.

Eyewitness News showed him video of the warehouse.

"This is a standard story of ‘out of sight, out of mind,’ and to forget your own workers, many of whom may have been there 10, 20, 30 years, and the value of their privacy and the confidentiality of their records, is really sort of unheard of in personnel management,” Rathke said.

Some experts said it could create a very real risk for identity theft, with innocent public-school workers left vulnerable to would-be crooks.

"A lot of times what they'll do is get credit cards in your name, and other lines of credit and could even open a bank account,” said Will Hatcher, an FBI special agent specializing in cyber crime.

At the warehouse, Eyewitness News found no security guards to speak of, or signs to keep people away – just old textbooks and toilets.

It was hard enough to stand, let alone walk, in most parts of the building.  The floor was completely covered, with everything from old finger paint to forgotten American flags, and one could actually sense the water damage well before seeing it on the ground. 

"We're the owner of the building, so I guess we ultimately have to say, we can only point our fingers at ourselves,” said Stan Smith, chief financial officer for the Orleans Parish school board.

Smith said the school district had no idea the building was unlocked, or that it was still home to confidential documents.

"I'd say that's a lot of bull," said Simpson, the former maintenance worker.  After the storm, he says he told lawyers for the school board that personnel files were left inside the building. 

School officials say steps were taken soon after Hurricane Katrina to remove what they thought were all of the records, but Smith now acknowledges they clearly were mistaken.

As for the future of the warehouse, the school board says its waiting on FEMA to declare the facility more than 50 percent damaged.

"That would allow us to demolish it,” Smith said.

According to FEMA, $13.7 million have already been obligated for the warehouse.  The agency said it approved over $12 million to replace the contents and nearby school buses and nearly $1.5 million to repair the building.

FEMA said the last of the money was approved on April 4, 2008, more than one year ago.

Smith said those millions aren't really available to spend.

"Right now it's paper, it’s sitting on a project worksheet," Smith said.

He said the school district wants to use the money to build more schools, rather than reconstruct a warehouse that's now too big for what the shrunken New Orleans school system currently needs. But that change can't happen until FEMA gives the okay. Even then, the school board will have to shell out the cash first.

"FEMA is a reimbursable program,” Smith said.  “You have to spend the money before you get it."

In the meantime, Smith says he also hopes to increase the amount the federal government is willing to give the district for the worn out warehouse. 

But progress is slow. In fact, Smith said the process hasn't even started.

"We think it should be able to be done within the next six months,” he said.

FEMA officials denied WWL-TV’s request for an on-camera interview. 

What remains certain is that countless confidential records were left unsecured.

“This is going to lead to a number of phone calls and lines of people out at the personnel office for Orleans public schools, to find out what the impact may have been on their records and looking for assurances that they're getting protection,” Rathke said.

Alton Simpson said he'll be one of them.

"I think it's criminal,” he said. “I think it's very foolish of them to handle our documents like that, our numbers, our lives."

The man who helped look after the well-being of New Orleans schools for nearly 32 years, said he's disappointed his employer didn't return the favor.

"I guess you could say everything was washed away with the storm.  They just forgot about everybody there and just pushed it aside, didn't care about the employees."

After Eyewitness News notified the school board about the abandoned building, the district hired a moving company to relocate the confidential documents, and another company to shred files. They've been working since last Friday and said they hope to be done by the end of the week. 

The doors of the warehouse have also been secured, but the non-confidential materials and garbage inside are not being moved The school board said it is all needed as evidence for when they can get FEMA to reevaluate the damages, in hope of locking in more money to build new schools. 

Since Katrina, the Orleans School Board has spent $42.7 million building and renovating schools. FEMA has reimbursed them for about $4 million, but the school board believes they're entitled to at least six times that.