BCPS defends Oracle payroll rollout as unions and staff report ongoing pay errors

Baltimore County Public Schools officials told the Board of Education on Oct. 7 that the district's July rollout of Oracle's enterprise resource planning (ERP) human-capital and payroll modules remains on a multi-phase implementation schedule and is supported by short-term "hyper-care" and a three-year managed-services agreement.

The district presentation said the HCM/payroll modules went live July 1 and that Phases 3—5 (finance, budget and procurement) are scheduled for July 1, 2026. "Since July, we've had seven pay dates and almost 95,000 pay events for close to 22,000 BCPS employees," payroll lead David Tantliff said during the presentation, adding the district's current payroll accuracy rate is about 98 percent.

Union representatives and school administrators told the board the transition has produced recurring problems. "Principals and supervisors are reporting that they're spending 90 to 120 minutes from the close of business on Friday through the time the payroll is due on Monday," Billy Burke, a CASE representative, said during public comment. Burke also said administrators sometimes receive approval notifications only to be later informed that work "wasn't actually submitted."

Kelly Oates of TABCO described a range of payroll problems: missing pay, incorrect rates, improper withholdings and a lack of timely corrections between pay cycles. "This has yet not yet been scheduled. What is causing these issues? How are we holding the contractor accountable for their end of this multimillion dollar contract?" she asked, referring to requested meetings with Oracle.

District staff outlined steps taken to address errors and to support employees. Mr. Tantliff described a multi-tiered customer-service center and one-on-one training for staff encountering problems, and he said the vendor is providing on-site "hyper-care" support for three months plus managed services. Superintendent Dr. Miriam Rogers said district staff have intervened directly in some hardship cases, including contacting mortgage companies and creditors and issuing manual checks when necessary. "While this is not a pervasive issue, it is critically important that we recognize that behind every issue ... is an individual who is impacted," Rogers said.

Board members pressed staff on remedies and timelines. In response to a question about interim relief, Rogers and payroll staff said manual checks have been issued in hardship cases and the district can issue pay advances where needed. Tantliff said pay stubs in Oracle are currently available only on payday, and staff are encouraging employees to watch for and confirm the automatic confirmation emails that Oracle sends when hours are approved. "That's one of the ways that we're training staff members because that's the first, your first alert that something is wrong," Rogers said.

District presenters pointed to audit findings dating to 2015 and 2019 that recommended modernization of legacy systems, and they framed the Oracle move as an effort to standardize processes and adopt industry standards. A vendor representative quoted in the presentation called BCPS' HCM implementation "one of the most efficiently executed K-12 HCM implementations" the firm had supported.

The board did not take new formal action on the ERP item at the meeting, but trustees and union leaders asked for continuing updates and faster remediation of recurring errors.

Provenance: Topic intro: "Good evening, chair and missus Lictor..." (Billy Burke public comment, 00:11:25) Topic finish: "We went from weekly payroll... We've had an accuracy rate of about 98%." (payroll presentation, 01:28:51)