S.F. schools ditch disastrous payroll system
After two years and $34 million trying to make a disastrous payroll system work, San Francisco school officials are giving up and are ready to pay another $5.6 million to start over with another company.
The EMPower payroll system has caused chaos since it was launched in January 2022, resulting in error-filled paychecks — if teachers and other staff were paid at all. The problems filtered into health and retirement benefits, leaving some employees temporarily without medical coverage and others without payments into pensions.
In one case, a principal wrote a personal check for $4,500 to help a teacher cover rent until she was paid.
The problems were so pervasive that the district declared a state of emergency in November 2022, creating a 60-person command center to resolve errors. The decision came less than a week after more than 100 teachers staged a sick-out, part of a citywide day of action by educators and staff regarding the payroll problems.
The fiasco damaged the district’s reputation after several years of pandemic-related controversy and infuriated its staff amid an already dire teacher shortage.
“Maybe declaring a state of emergency on this will speed up the process toward resolution,” said Chris Clauss, a special education teacher at George Washington High School, at the time. “I, however, am not holding my breath for a fast resolution.”
She wasn’t wrong.
The school board is expected to approve a new contract on March 12 with Frontline Education, which offers a system in wide use among California school districts and stands in direct contrast to the build-fromscratch EMPower program that never was able to adapt to the complicated needs of public education employees.
“This decision was made after thoughtful and careful consideration of what kind of (employee management) system we need as the third largest employer in San Francisco,” Superintendent Matt Wayne said in a statement released late Thursday. “We are taking lessons learned from our switch to EMPowerSF in 2022 as we plan for this transition. I am confident that this change is in the best interest of our employees.”
It will take nearly 18 months to fully adopt the new system, with the hope it will be fully operational and bug-free by the summer of 2025.
The news was celebrated by teachers union officials, who have lambasted the district over the problems since EMPower was launched, resulting in teacher protests, angry testimonials and labor complaints.
As of the end of February, there were more than 1,700 open cases related to questions or problems with paychecks, although that’s down from several thousand in previous months.
“Getting rid of EMPowerSF is an important step towards building back trust and repairing the tremendous harm done to educators,” said Frank Lara, executive vice president of United Educators of San Francisco, in the district statement. “We hope the painstaking lessons learned while stabilizing EMPowerSF will be applied when moving to the new system.”
The local Service Employees International Union also expressed relief.
“We stood persistently in opposition to EMpowerSF since its implementation at SFUSD, but we appreciate Dr. Wayne on validating our stance on removing a system that falls short of meeting the requirements to work successfully for a public school district,” said SEIU 1021 Vice President Antonaé Robertson.
The original contractor for the EMPower system was SAP, with Infosys responsible for implementation. The initial contract was for $9.5 million, which was later increased to $11.1 million and then again to $13.7 million, with the current price tag reaching more than three times the original expected cost.
It’s too soon to know if the district will pursue compensation from the original contractors.
Wayne said the district would be using lessons learned in the adoption and rollout of EMPower to ensure a smooth transition to the new system, consulting with other districts who use Frontline, among other actions.
Families and staff count on us to demonstrate best practices in running a large urban school district,” Board of Education President Lainie Motamedi said. “The time is overdue for us to invest in a proven and successful system that enables us to keep our focus on our students’ success, while improving and strengthening district operations.”