SFUSD says new payroll system is stabilizing as unions and school leaders press for timely pay and higher administrator salaries

San Francisco Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Lamia Hsu and operations leaders told the Board of Education the districthas transitioned major payroll and human-resources functions to a new enterprise system, Frontline, and is actively addressing remaining errors tied to the legacy SAP/Empower implementation.

The update came after a series of public comments from school-site and central-office administrators and union leaders who described recurring payroll errors and urged the district to act quickly to correct missed pay and to address compensation disparities.

"This is now a month and several days into this transition and things are holding. Frontline is holding," Superintendent Hsu said, adding the district is at a reported 97% accuracy rate for recent payrolls and has staff working "day and night" to make paychecks right.

Why it matters: Pay errors affect low-paid employeesincluding paraeducators and substitute staffand school leaders said pay instability is driving turnover at a time the district faces enrollment and staffing challenges.

District update and timeline

Deputy Superintendent for Business Services Chris Mount Benitez told the board the district has responded to three years of state audit requests and that outstanding audit items have been filed with the California Department of Education. "We were able to respond to all three years," Mount Benitez said.

Marin Trujillo, the districtoperations lead overseeing the Frontline rollout, gave a detailed status report on payroll cycles, ticket volumes, and planned mitigations. Trujillo said the district has run multiple payroll cycles through Frontline and a related system, Red Rover, and that Frontline can now produce off-cycle/manual checks that the old system could not easily print.

"If we don't tell our story others will," Trujillo said, and he acknowledged remaining pain points: overlapping use of SAP and Frontline while some summer and legacy payroll runs remain in the old system; end-user confusion about Red Rover functionality; and missing supervisor assignments that blocked approvals.

Trujillo said the district's service-level agreement for payroll includes a 48-hour target to correct issues that are inside the Frontline ecosystem. Executive Director of Payroll (Ms. Harris) told the board that smaller corrections are processed quickly, but complex reconciliations that require looking back into SAP or other legacy records take longer.

Union and school-leader concerns

United Administrators of San Francisco (UASF) members, including UASF President Anna Clafter and several principals and site leaders, urged the board to prioritize compensation and parity with surrounding districts. "Compensation is our members' number one concern," Clafter told the board. She said neighboring districts pay "$30,000 to $40,000 more" for similar roles and that principal turnover in SFUSD is "nearly 25 to 30% per year." UASF vice president Myra Quadros, principal and UASF vice president, said site leaders often work through summers "without stipends" and asked the board to prioritize a raise and training on new systems.

United Educators of San Francisco (UESF) Vice President for Educators Tianna Tillery and paraeducator advocates raised a separate but related complaint: vacation payouts and other preapproved payouts for paraeducators were delayed in August, leaving some workers without rent or medication. Tillery said paraeducators "did everything right and they were failed" and urged immediate, proactive communication and a commitment that the scheduled August 20 payouts would be on time.

"This isn't just an administrative delay or a technical hiccup. This is people's rent. This is people's food. This is people's medication," Tillery said.

Operations response and next steps

District leaders detailed mitigations: increasing staff at command centers after payroll runs, making software configuration changes in Red Rover to prevent user errors (for example, separating vacation requests from main scheduled job entries), and posting long-vacant finance and operations roles including a CFO and head of operations. Trujillo said the district will consider pausing certain rollout phases if necessary to strengthen Phase 1 implementation and reduce reliance on external consultants.

Deputy Superintendent Mount Benitez and the superintendent said the district is preparing a transition plan to taper consultant support for legacy systems and build internal capacity over the coming months.

What was not decided

The board did not vote on a specific compensation package for administrators at the meeting; union requests for pay parity were delivered as public comment and will need to be addressed through budget and bargaining processes. UESF indicated it has filed an unfair labor practice charge with the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) regarding some implementation impacts.

Ending note

District leaders said they will continue nightly command-center support during payroll cycles, expand user training (including in-person pilots), and prioritize fixing any unreconciled no-pay situations immediately. The superintendent and operations team told the board they will provide further updates as the next payroll cycles complete.