The Rochester Teachers Association is pursuing arbitration with the city school district over ongoing payroll mishaps.
This follows a court decision last week that threw out the union’s request for an injunction requiring the district to pay employees accurately and on time. Both have been an issue under the district’s new HR software, Oracle Fusion Program.
Teachers have been receiving error-ridden paychecks since July, when the district switched to the software. Staffers report deduction errors, missing wages, and incorrect paid time off accruals.
“The next step is to consider whether or not we can accelerate the recourse available to us through the contract, which is arbitration with the district,” said Adam Urbanski, president of the teachers union.
The union’s concern has been whatever award or restitution is ultimately made to employees will come too late to repair whatever hardships are caused in the meantime.
Urbanski said he figured the injunction would be denied, but he chose to file the petition anyway due to what he calls an “extreme situation” allegedly affecting over a thousand employees.
The union also is pressing the superintendent and school board to switch payroll to a different vendor, Urbanski said, but he did not specify an alternative provider.
Superintendent Eric Rosser has previously stated that he is already exploring options. District officials have said they have been working to fix the problems but find that solutions seemingly only lead to additional complications
“If those two things run their course and don't yield an improvement or a finality to this fiasco, then we turn to the courts and say, ‘We've exhausted all the internal options available to us. Now you can indeed take up this case,’" he said.
The exact number of staff affected, and how many paycheck errors have been calculated is unclear.
“Not only do the problems continue, but now there is a new culture. And the culture is that nobody working for the City School District can have any confidence that their next paycheck will be on time and correct,” Urbanski said.
That sentiment was evident at a school board meeting last month. During the public forum, teachers and staffers who have been directly affected by payroll issues called on district leadership to take accountability for a situation that is causing significant financial hardship.
“I'm 25 years old, working a second job just to make ends meet because I'm not getting paid from my teaching job, a salary job," educator Lauren Sparacio said at the Oct. 30 meeting. “I'm using credit cards to survive right now, not because I mismanaged my money, but because RCSD mismanaged their payroll.”
Sparacio alluded to potential impending consequences due to the ongoing mishaps, including mass resignations.
“There is a saying, ‘You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes,” she said. “Well, congratulations to this board and to the higher ups at Central Office. Your prize is a district full of angry, demoralized, burnt-out educators and staff. Your prize is mass resignations, plummeting morale and a growing reputation that drives away the next generation of teachers.”
Urbanski affirmed that the majority of teachers who have resigned since the summer cited a lack of confidence in accurate pay and compensation for their work, and a lack of response from the district.
“While the district fails to demonstrate a sense of urgency, a lot of harm is being done. Number one, at a time of a shortage of teachers, they are now exacerbating resignations we have had over 85 resignations since July 1, and the majority of people who are leaving are leaving because this is the straw that broke the camel's back,” Urbanski said.
It was not immediately clear how that number of resignations compares to past years. School board President Camille Simmons said she’s not directly aware of any resignations specifically tied to issues with Oracle.
“I can understand if people are concerned about their pay, that they might want to look elsewhere,” Simmons said. “... The current administration has inherited a monster of an issue, and they're doing all they can to again, mitigate and get this under control. And I have to commend them for their efforts.”
Finding a resolution won’t be immediate, since it’s a matter of navigating an “extremely complex issue” that began in 2021 when the district opted into the Oracle software, Simmons said.
“Oracle is not just a payroll system,” she said, “it's a complex, nuanced system. That's what's making this such a difficult situation.”
Simmons said she's looking forward to findings from an audit into what went wrong. As for the full scope of the matter, the number of staffers affected and the financial impact, she said she doesn’t have verified up-to-date information. The district is currently in a payroll cycle.
“I think the district would be in the best position to provide the actual count or numbers,” she said.
WXXI News reached out to the district twice for comment and did not receive a response.
In a presentation during the Oct 30 school board meeting, Chief Financial Officer Robert McDow said the district is receiving support with Oracle implementation from the company itself, as well as the company’s partners: Cherry Road, Attain Partners, and Novamodus.
As of Oct. 21, about 1,800 total tickets had been submitted to Central Office since July 1 regarding paycheck issues over the course of eight pay periods, McDow said. Though he added that that doesn’t encompass the full scale of the issue.
“Some people do not put tickets in,” he said. “Some people have gone to their unions and used that vehicle to let us know what the issues are.”
Referring to an August pay period, McDow said problems appeared to be resolved, then would lead to other complications.
“This is another anomaly with the system. We would fix things and then they would create other issues,” McDow said, adding: “It’s hard to get stability with that.”Since July 1, McDow said the district has issued almost 4,000 off-cycle checks totaling more than $1.4 million to account for verified, erroneous paychecks.
Off-cycle checks are processed outside of regularly scheduled pay periods and used as a way to correct mistakes or address other urgent matters related to payment.
Going forward, he said, payroll protocols are shifting to a triage system to manage reported issues, adjusting staffing and adding staff training to account for the demand for managing the volume of concerns, and continuing to issues off-cycle checks as needed.
Superintendent Eric Rosser said in that same meeting that he is exploring other possible vendors for payroll services.
