Committee approves 15 temporary payroll positions as Workday review continues

On Feb. 12 the Los Angeles City Council Personnel Committee approved 15 temporary sub‑authority positions to support manual payroll corrections at the Los Angeles Fire Department as city staff and the Workday vendor continue a technical review of persistent payroll errors.

The positions — approved as sub authorities for the remainder of the fiscal year — are intended to expand the department's capacity to audit and correct a large volume of retroactive payments and other payroll discrepancies stemming from the switch to the Workday payroll and HR system and from preexisting backlog. Committee members also asked the city's IT, personnel and fire departments to return with a detailed technology recommendation for replacing or integrating the department's legacy network staffing system (NSS) with Workday.

The CAO's office had proposed nine substitute authority positions in the current fiscal year: one senior personnel analyst, two personnel record supervisors, one senior administrative clerk, one personnel analyst and four accounting clerks. The committee voted to amend that recommendation and add four senior administrative clerks, one personnel analyst and one systems analyst, bringing the total to 15 sub authorities. Councilmember John McOsker moved the amendment; the committee approved the motion on a 3-0 roll call (McOsker: yes; Monica Rodriguez: aye; Hutt: yes). The committee chair instructed staff to seek the earliest possible full‑council date next week to place the item on the council floor.

The CAO's presentation described additional temporary surge assistance already being provided by the personnel department: 30 surge positions (22 personnel and 8 clerks) are being loaned to the department for immediate help, separate from the 15 sub authorities. The CAO estimated the current fiscal‑year cost for the nine‑position configuration at roughly $237,000 for a partial (about four‑month) period and about $1.2 million for a full year. A rough, preliminary estimate for a technical solution to replace or supplement NSS was stated in committee materials at about $1.5 million.

Union leaders and LAFD representatives told the committee the problem is urgent. "We've come. It's our third time coming here, and what we're asking for is for some form of accountability and also for a timeline," said Freddie Escobar, president of the firefighters of Los Angeles City, who said he represents more than 3,400 firefighters. The committee repeatedly asked for concrete timing for specific fixes; officials said some corrections can be made quickly while large retroactive overtime calculations will take months.

Staff and vendor updates: ITA and LAFD reported that Workday and the department's NSS do not communicate cleanly and that at least one set of retroactive calculations tied to the most recent labor agreement (referred to in the meeting as MOU 23) produced a Workday report of roughly 89,000 overtime transaction lines affecting about 3,300 members that will have to be reviewed and validated before payment. City staff said Workday has convened a Tiger team to identify automation opportunities; Lisa Coulter, senior managing partner with Workday, told the committee, "Our goal would be within the next two weeks to have a written report ready," and she agreed to a compressed one‑week target when asked by the committee.

City staff described a mix of short‑ and long‑term workstreams: (1) manual reviews and corrections to individual records and retro payments, (2) near‑term configuration changes in Workday to improve overtime rate calculations and bonus processing, and (3) a vendor/third‑party assessment of scheduling and NSS replacement options (UKG was cited as one vendor under review). Refunds for certain voluntary health contributions were estimated to begin with the March 19 paycheck, with some refunds spread over multiple pay periods. Bonus configurations for going forward had been tested and were ready to be implemented; retroactive back pay for bonuses still required additional work.

Committee members pressed for speed. Personnel staff said approved substitute authorities can be entered into Workday quickly but that the hiring process typically takes several weeks; personnel suggested some roles could be filled by transfer or emergency appointment to accelerate onboarding. Sub authorities are effective for the fiscal year and will require discussion during the upcoming mayoral budget process if the positions are to be maintained beyond June 30.

The committee also requested that the ITA, LAFD and Workday produce a written assessment of the pros and cons of (a) mapping NSS functionality into Workday versus (b) adopting a third‑party scheduling solution that would integrate with Workday; staff promised a written report within about one week and said the committee would agendize follow‑up action once the report was delivered.

The committee's action expands near‑term staffing to address manual corrections while keeping open a parallel path to a longer‑term technical solution. The mayor's office and budget staff were identified as stakeholders in deciding how many of the temporary positions become ongoing budgeted positions next fiscal year.