Members of the Rochester city school board are calling on the state comptroller's office to investigate alleged “pervasive financial mismanagement” regarding payroll mishaps with the human resources software Oracle.
School board members Beatriz LeBron-Harris, Isaiah Santiago, and Cynthia Elliott signed a joint letter to the state comptroller's office requesting an investigation into what they call a “systemic failure” that has jeopardized district finances and inflicted severe hardship on workers.
The district began the transition to Oracle in 2021, when Lesli Myers-Small was superintendent, and involved millions of dollars in pandemic relief funds. There have been three superintendents since that time. The district formerly used PeopleSoft.
“The project was presented to the Board with a projected cost of approximately $51.3 million,” the three board members said in the joint letter. “However, the reality of this transition has been a complex, opaque, and fiscally irresponsible endeavor, making the true total cost impossible to ascertain.”
A spokesperson with the New York state comptroller's office said they are reviewing the request.
With school starting on Thursday and the next payday approaching on Friday, Rochester Teachers Association President Adam Urbanski said there is anxiety over whether staff will be paid in full and on time.
“The people who are making the least amount of money, sometimes not much more than minimum wage, are the ones who were hit the hardest, and they suffered penalties for not being able to either pay mortgage or to pay for car loans or to balance their checkbooks,” Urbanski said.
This summer, some employees have missed out on thousands of dollars in pay according to Angelo Palmerini, president of the support staff union BENTE.
“Right now, it's like all hands-on deck to get the schools open,” Palmerini said. “(Custodians) worked at their regular school for two weeks, which is 80 hours, and then at night they ... worked another eight (hours) and these people, their time was rejected and they got no paycheck at all.”
The union presidents have reached out to local lawmakers, the U.S. Department of Labor, and the governor’s office looking for a resolution. Palmerini said he spoke with the governor’s office last week.
Superintendent Eric Rosser said in a recent school board meeting that part of the challenge is a software defect in Oracle affecting pay accuracy. He said 825 employees who have received insufficient pay for their work this summer are expected to receive back pay by mid-September.
Whether the district continues to work with Oracle software, which replaced PeopleSoft, will be under consideration, Rosser said.
“While Oracle is currently our product, we are evaluating it to determine if it has a good fit or the best fit for the Rochester City School District, given the challenges that we have seen just for the summer months,” Rosser said.
