District 65 Screws Up June Payroll

Some staffers left in the dark without pay until Monday, in violation of collective bargaining agreements

At about 4pm, District 65 employees starting reaching out to me today to indicate that they weren’t paid yet for this month. According to the DESC collective bargaining agreement:

Employees will be paid on the fifteenth (15th) and thirtieth (30th) of each month in which they are working.

Since the 30th is on Sunday, District 65 employees were supposed to be paid today. There are similar terms in the other union contracts. I reached out to the District for comment, which I have included below, citing the issue as some kind of software outage.

On behalf of our cabinet team, we want to express our deepest apologies for the fact that some of our staff members did not receive timely compensation today. We recognize the significant level of frustration and the difficult position that some of our valued team members are finding themselves in. Every individual deserves to be paid in a timely manner.

This morning we confirmed that all funds and files were sent to our primary bank. We also confirmed that the bank released the funds to all employees’ banks. The time in which an employee’s personal account will get credited varies based on their bank. As of 4:30pm, we received confirmation that some employees had received their direct deposit.

Unfortunately, the overall processing delay was largely the result of an outage this week of our financial software system that affected school districts across the country. This being said we can always improve on our internal systems, which is one of our primary goals in the coming year. Our team has discussed and will continue to debrief contingency plans in the event of a future outage to help ensure that this type of situation does not happen again.

We apologize for the inconvenience and can assure you that we have prioritized resolving this as expeditiously as possible. We also want to ensure our employees remain whole as a result of this difficult situation. If you have concerns or questions, please contact askpayroll@district65.net. Thank you for your patience.

This isn’t the first time District 65 has had issues with payroll, in 2022 the Roundtable published a story on payroll issues at the start of the 2022-23 school year, citing new software as the issue. In the 2023-24 school year, teachers reported to me similar issues in September, alleging that their first paycheck was weeks late.

For some people, missing end of month payroll may have dire legal consequences - rent is due on Monday, people may have child support or other legal payments due on the last day of the month.

I will say personally, as a resident and a taxpayer, I am ashamed of this and the Board¹ owes all these staff members an apology and the administration should answer to the Board in public. The District is again putting some of their most at-risk employees in a bind. I own a business and making sure my people get paid is the most important part of my job. This is absolutely unacceptable. Why would anyone want to work for a District that can’t even do payroll correct?

1. Recall, it’s the Board who pays everyone!