HALLOWELL — School employee frustrations with the district’s beleaguered payroll system are boiling over as months of errors continue to mount and communication about the problem has become “unbearable.”
That’s according to the head of the union representing Regional School Unit 2 employees, who say they are still experiencing issues with the accuracy of their paychecks, despite a switchover to new software that the administration ensured would help solve the problems.
Keith Morang, president of the Kennebec-Intra District Schools Union, said in a statement that the union “does not have an exact count” of how many employees have been impacted, but that it is been “widespread and consistent.” Employees have had three paychecks since the district rolled out the new software and paychecks are still inconstant and wrong, according to Morang and district employees.
“For over a year, the payroll issues in RSU 2 have been a source of constant distraction for employees,” Morang said in a statement. “The poor and untimely communication that employees encounter when trying to rectify an error has become unbearable. The excuses, apologies, and glossing over of these significant payroll issues in RSU 2 public meetings are not preventing employee frustrations from boiling over. We need the immediate return of the accuracy in the payroll department we grew to expect in the first twelve years of the RSU.”
The ongoing issues RSU 2 employees reported as wrong with their paychecks were still a problem three pay periods into the new software’s launch in April. The paycheck issues range from not being paid at all, to being paid the incorrect amounts, to having the wrong deductions come out of paychecks for benefits and retirement plans.
District officials haven’t said what’s causing the problems, but Superintendent Rick Amero said in January at a board of directors meeting that staff turnover was a key factor. With the new software, it’s not clear whether human error or software glitches are to blame.
The issue is similar to the Portland Public Schools’ ongoing issues with its payroll, where 750 employees, half the district’s workforce, went unpaid, or experienced pay issues similar to that of RSU 2’s.
Morang said the full list of issues shared by the payroll staff is: Social Security being deducted when it should not have been; missing benefit deductions; incorrect benefit deductions; hourly rate not showing up on pay stubs; and missing additional withholding amounts. Some other employees reported being paid twice, not being paid at all and others reported chunks of $200 to $300 missing from their paycheck.
The district purchased the software last year to replace their outdated financial software, “ADS,” and scheduled to launch the new software, Tyler Technology’s Infinite Visions, on Jan. 2. Infinite Visions payroll and human resources software is designed specifically for school districts. Tyler Technology is a software company headquartered in Plano, Texas, with multiple locations in Maine and provides a number of school districts with various types of software to operate schools.
Tyler Technology did not respond to a request for comment.
Because teachers are in salaried positions, their information is already in the system and paychecks are divided bi-weekly. For positions such as ed techs, bus drivers, or cafeteria staff, their hours are manually submitted but consistent across the weeks, and months. Stipends for extracurriculars, or coaching activities, are given out twice a year — in December and May — and some employees either received the wrong amount or did not receive one at all in the most recent pay period.
Infinite Vision’s launch was delayed until April to “ensure the existing data is correct in the new system,” Amero wrote in his January letter when he originally addressed the problems. In response to the payroll issues this time around, Amero sent out a “Payroll Assistance Form” to employees to aid in tracking the issues.
District employees say they’ve been frustrated by administrators downplaying the payroll problems. Business Manager Stephanie Saltzman gave an update to directors at their May 4 meeting and called the payroll incidents “hiccups,” but Morang said the issues have had “major impacts” on employees.
“Employees continue to be inconvenienced by these issues and experience response delays when trying to get these issues solved,” Morang said. “While these issues are described as ‘hiccups’ in the recent business manager’s report at the last board meeting, these issues have major impacts on many of the employees in RSU 2.”
Saltzman submitted her resignation to the district in March and said her last day would be April 19, but Saltzman stayed with the district until Monday of this week to continue addressing the problems.
In her resignation letter, Saltzman hinted at sharp conflict between administration and the union. While she “enjoyed working with staff,” the “time and energy required to make the union president happy … continues to distract me from being able to get all aspects of my job done while trying to implement a new system and stay on top of our benefits.”
Meanwhile, board Chair Donna Seppy addressed employees in an email Monday for the first time since the payroll issues began and told employees that the board plans to work to fix the problems. She encouraged the employees to show up to this week’s public budget hearings within the municipalities if they would like to speak with her, or the board, about the issues.
“Our district has encountered tremendous difficulties in transitioning the payroll to a new system,” she wrote. “The Board is very aware of these problems, and we are working with the central office to fix them.”
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