Syracuse officials report progress on payroll modernization; $8.1 million spent to date

Syracuse City staff updated the Human Resources Committee on April 14, 2025 on the city's multi-year payroll modernization effort, saying timekeeping software is being rolled out department by department while the city reevaluates which human capital management (HCM) product to adopt for payroll and other HR functions.

The project, officials said, is intended to replace paper-based processes and a 30-year-old AS 400 payroll system. "AS 400 has processed over a billion dollars worth of payments for payroll," said Michael Cannizzaro, Commissioner of Finance. City staff told the committee roughly $8.1 million has been spent on the overall effort to date; a $10 million figure circulating publicly was described as a total contract ceiling rather than money already spent.

Why it matters: Syracuse pays more than $100 million a year in wages to roughly 1,900',300 employees (growing seasonally), across nine bargaining units and 32 departments, officials said. Payroll errors or interruptions can immediately affect take-home pay for employees who often live paycheck to paycheck, and the city must meet enhanced New York State retirement reporting requirements that staff said are currently a year overdue.

What city staff described

- Timekeeping rollout: City staff said the Syracuse Workforce timekeeping system (SWC) has been reconfigured, retrained and resumed department rollouts after earlier problems. Josh Sireson, Innovation Project Leader for the Office of Analytics, Performance and Innovation…