Freshly written posters covered a large wooden table at the Rochester Teachers Association headquarters on Union Street Tuesday afternoon as music played on a boombox and the smell of pizza lingered.
Rochester City School District teachers and staff gathered here to prepare for an upcoming rally outside Central Office on Thursday afternoon ahead of a school board meeting over ongoing payroll issues.
They wrote out messages in marker: “Broken Promises Can’t Pay Bills,” one sign read. “Crickets DON’T Pay My Bills!!!” read another.
Paycheck errors have affected hundreds of, if not more than a thousand, school employees for months ever since the district transitioned to a new human resources software system this summer, Oracle Fusion Program, on July 1.
“We feel very disrespected by the district in general. It's not been taken care of in a timely manner,” Maria Gonzalez, a school psychologist with the district, said. “The superintendent had told us that everything would be resolved by Sept. 19 and still — we're still having a lot of issues.”
For Gonzalez, it’s personal. About 100 hours of sick time she had accrued are now unaccounted for, she said — and she is not alone.
Dinorah Morales-Cruz, a bilingual teacher at Monroe High School, said she and roughly 15 other teachers are affected at her school.
“In my case, when I look at the pay slip, I was looking at ‘Hey, I have only 175 hours for sickness? ’ No, I check it in May, and I have 250-something,” Morales-Cruz said. “What happened with the other hours? Some people doesn't know because they don't have access to their pay slips.”
Union representatives for teachers, administrators, and support staff report an ongoing array of payroll issues ranging from missing wages, lack of payment on time, duplicate deductions, and inaccuracies in paid time off accruals.
“It varies from pay cycle to pay cycle because nothing's consistent,” Angelo Palmerini, president of the support staff union BENTE said during a phone interview. “This past pay cycle, last Friday, there’s probably about 40 (BENTE union members) that are affected in one way or another.”
For teachers, that number is currently closer to 400, said RTA President Adam Urbanski.
“They're either not getting their paycheck, or they're not getting correct pay, or they're not getting their pay on time,” Urbanski said. “And now the newest major problem is that the deductions that are being made from their paycheck are very inaccurate.”
The school board voted earlier this month to direct the superintendent to seek a third-party firm to conduct an audit.
“When that information does come back to the board, when that audit starts and what have you, I believe we will find out exactly what has caused these issues, and we're hoping that it will give us the information we need to move forward in the way that we need,” school board President Camille Simmons said. “But we do stand with our employees.”
That vote, on Sept. 9, followed calls from school board members Isaiah Santiago, Beatriz LeBron-Harris, and Cynthia Elliott — as well as union representatives — for the state comptroller’s office to investigate.
However, when it came to the school board resolution for the district to seek an independent audit, LeBron-Harris was the only nay vote.
“I will not be supporting this audit. I don't want to spend any more dollars on the issue,” LeBron-Harris said ahead of the vote. “I certainly want more accountability and state eyes on this issue. I'm not confident internally that this can be fully flushed out. We have no data points up until this notion of how many people have been impacted, what that looks like and what the future holds.”
The district’s transition to Oracle began in 2021, when Lesli Myers-Small was superintendent, and it involved millions of dollars in pandemic relief funds. There have been three superintendents since that time. The district formerly used PeopleSoft, which was bought out by Oracle in 2004.
Rochester is one of at least two school districts in the state that use the Oracle software — Syracuse City School District reportedly also transitioned to it on July 1 — and both are grappling with payroll errors.
In a statement, Superintendent Eric Rosser — whose first day on the job coincided with the rollout of Oracle — said that leadership is “actively engaged in strengthening payroll operations.”
Media Statement from RCSD Superintendent Rosser on continued payroll issues:
“Despite progress in some areas, I remain frustrated that payroll issues continue to surface and affect our employees. These challenges are unacceptable and must be addressed expeditiously.
“District leadership is actively engaged in strengthening payroll operations. This week, we brought on additional outside experts to ensure that those employees who have been impacted are compensated as early as possible and to address the systemic problems that serve as the root causes of our payroll issues.
“We continue collaborating closely with our union partners to identify and resolve problems, while also engaging with our Oracle consultants, other school districts experiencing similar issues, and state officials to ensure that solutions are comprehensive and sustainable.
“I fully support the actions of our collective bargaining units as they advocate for District employees. I stand in solidarity with them to meet the needs of every staff member who has been impacted.
“The District’s top priority is to ensure every employee is paid accurately and on time. Until that is consistently achieved, we will continue to devote all available resources to resolving these issues.”
