Committee hears update on LAFD payroll errors; orders two-week report

City Controller staff, Los Angeles Fire Department officials and city technology and personnel leaders on Tuesday updated a council committee on a series of payroll problems affecting Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) employees following the city’s transition to Workday and ordered a written report in two weeks on short‑term status, recommended positions and a proposed technology fix.

The issues matter because firefighters and other LAFD employees have seen incorrect or delayed pay, missed bonuses and mistaken deductions; the committee emphasized both immediate corrections and longer‑term staffing and technology solutions to prevent repeat errors.

City Controller staff told the committee the office and other agencies identified seven primary issues linked to the recent MOU 23 changes and the Workday implementation, and provided status updates on each. “This is a priority 1 item, meaning that this is, we're working on this, as as 1 of our highest priorities, and it's in progress,” the City Controller’s office said when describing work on retroactive pay tied to MOU 23. Controller staff said Workday provided a retro analysis and that LAFD payroll review will take an estimated two to three pay periods before corrections can be loaded into payroll.

Controller staff summarized the seven issues as: (1) MOU 23 retroactive payments (in progress; Workday has produced a retro report and LAFD payroll review is underway); (2) overtime rate adjustments and a planned integration/configuration improvement to automate future retroactive updates (integration work estimated to begin Feb. 10); (3) excess pension contributions (controller’s office reported no known issues after review); (4) voluntary pension health contributions ($1,000 accidental deductions — LAFPP is reviewing a Workday report; refunds aimed for mid‑March); (5) a missed medical subsidy increase affecting multiple pay periods (work split into last fiscal year pay periods 25 and 26 and current pay period 27 for ITA analysis; results to be shared with employee benefits teams); (6) uniform allowance bonus (fixed and closed); and (7) two large bonuses (a configured rescue ambulance NF bonus in testing and an acting‑pay FA0/FA9 bonus configured and being tested before LAFD review and production).

Controller staff also flagged additional items discussed after the primary seven: sick‑time payout complications when employees change schedules (personnel and LAFD are manually reviewing excluded payouts; personnel is confirming payslip amounts), vacation accrual concerns, IOD conversion testing (LAFD sent two to three transactions for testing; if accurate, payouts were expected on the Feb. 6 paycheck), and a previous inability to print older pay stubs (now fixed).

LAFD Chief Deputy for Administrative Operations Ron Saunders described long‑running civilian staffing shortfalls in the department’s personnel and payroll units and the operational strain they cause. Saunders said authorized personnel positions in the department’s HR unit dropped from 17 to 14 and that the payroll section currently has nine staff. He summarized the workload ratio and effect: “So we're talking about inherently, we're always gonna have, errors. We're always gonna have, the human factor in some of those. We're always gonna have payroll corrections,” Saunders said, adding that the department estimated between about 700 and 1,000 payroll corrections remain to be addressed.

To address the immediate backlog, the controller and the mayor’s office described a temporary surge of city staff: 30 city employees made available to help LAFD (22 from the Personnel Department and 8 from the City Clerk’s Office), many working overtime and weekends to perform manual reviews and data corrections. Mayor’s office Deputy Matt Hale said the mayor’s office is “committed to sustaining the staffing, on an emergency basis or, on an ongoing basis until we resolve all the payroll issues.” The CAO will pursue substitute authorities for administrative interns to assist with clerical data entry while longer‑term budget solutions are developed.

Technology and integration were central themes. Department and IT staff said the LAFD continues to rely on a legacy scheduling/time system called NSS, which was not reconfigured during the Workday rollout. ITA General Manager Ted Ross and LAFD CIO Sam Inahosa described NSS as a legacy system that sends schedule, time and rate data in a format Workday cannot fully validate, forcing manual corrections. “Workday is the solution, and and we're committed to that,” Sam Inahosa said, while describing the need for middleware or a replacement scheduling/time system that can produce Workday‑compatible feeds. LAFD officials discussed a proposed technology option (a middleware/timekeeping product such as UKG) with a budget placeholder of roughly $1.5 million; city staff said the amount is preliminary and would require further vetting and negotiation.

Workday and implementation partners have already embedded consultants with the department. City staff said two consultants are currently assigned and five more are arriving in the next weeks to help clear the backlog and advise on automation and integration improvements; controller staff said they expect most of the seven priority items to be largely resolved in the coming weeks. Specific schedules cited in committee discussion included aiming for mid‑March refunds of the $1,000 voluntary‑contribution deductions, an integration/configuration work start date of Feb. 10 for future retroactive updates, and an expected IOD conversion payout target of the Feb. 6 paycheck if tests validate properly.

Committee members repeatedly urged both a short‑term surge to correct current pay errors and a clear, funded long‑term plan. Several council members and the controller’s office stressed that the surge is a temporary “patch” and that the city must evaluate permanent civilian staffing needs, training requirements and technology changes in the upcoming budget cycle.

Action taken: Chairman McOsker moved — and, by unanimous consent, the committee approved — to continue the item to the same committee and to obtain a written two‑week report that (a) inventories the short‑term surge, its hours and whether it met LAFD needs, (b) recommends positions or reassignments required for a permanent solution, and (c) analyzes the proposed technology option (the roughly $1.5 million middleware/timekeeping approach), including pros, cons and cost estimates. The committee also directed the Tiger Team of controller, LAFD, Personnel, ITA and mayor’s office staff to continue meeting between hearings.

The committee deferred further votes and will reconvene on this item in two weeks to review the written report and status updates; committee members emphasized that correcting firefighters’ pay and preventing future errors is an urgent priority.