The Syracuse City School District added 13 new jobs to deal with a new payroll system after a rocky transition left hundreds of teachers unpaid or underpaid to start the school year.
The SCSD Board of Education unanimously voted to approve the creation of 13 jobs with little discussion on Wednesday. The salaries total at least $912,000 a year, plus benefits.
The district has spent $10.9 million on the change from PeopleSoft to Oracle so far, including $2.1 million on a transition consultant, BerryDunn.
The district needs more staff to “ensure accurate payroll” and stabilize key issues so staff can focus on students instead of payment problems, district spokesperson Amanda Malinowski said in an email.
The legislation was brought before the board Wednesday night. Commissioner Karen Cordano asked where money for the positions is coming from. A district employee said the district will not fill vacant positions in other departments and will use those salaries to hire the 13 employees.
“Just to be clear, these positions are in response to the board asking what additional resources (the district) needs to mitigate any obstacles the district may be facing in terms of our payroll issues,” said Tamica Barnett, the board president.
Barnett declined to answer questions about the vote after the meeting, directing questions to Malinowski.
SCSD posted three of the potential jobs on its website on Oct. 23, listing them as “anticipated” positions. They were not discussed at the school board work meeting the night before. The Nov. 12 agenda was the first to include the new jobs.
The positions are in human resources, information technology, the finance department and an hourly maintenance worker.
The added jobs come two months after the district’s new payroll system, an Oracle Cloud platform called “SCSDConnect,” left more than 900 teachers and staff with an incorrect paycheck. Problems included entire checks missing, paychecks not reflecting a raise or an incorrect benefits deduction.
The head of the teachers union said there are fewer problems now, but they’re still not all resolved.
The issues resulted in school employees struggling to pay for necessities like groceries and gas.
SCSD began converting from its former payroll system, Peoplesoft, to Oracle three years ago, according to Malinowski.
The payroll was moved to Oracle July 1 this year, she said.
A mix of staff not understanding the new interface and employees unsure of how to properly input and approve their hours led to to the paycheck mishaps, Malinowski said. The district aimed to better inform staff on how to use the system.
The district aims to fill the new jobs as soon as possible.
A list of the jobs and their starting salary:
- One account clerk II making $46,913 a year
- One accountant II making $81,781 a year
- One maintenance worker I making $24.30 an hour
- Two payroll clerks making $58,560 a year
- One personnel analyst making $68,958-$95,481 a year
- Three personnel specialists making $66,288 a year
- One programmer II making $78,990 a year
- Two senior data analysts making $84,872 a year
- One senior systems administrator making $99,373 a year
