Teachers, staff press SFUSD for fixes as Empower SF payroll failures persist
Loading...
Summary
Dozens of current and former San Francisco Unified School District employees told the school board Oct. 25 that ongoing errors in the district's Empower SF payroll system have left staff unpaid, with incorrect tax and benefits deductions, and widespread staffing stress. Speakers urged immediate payments and operational fixes.
Dozens of current and former San Francisco Unified School District employees used the board's public-comment period on Oct. 25 to describe continuing payroll errors tied to the district's Empower SF system and to demand immediate fixes and reimbursements. Staff described unpaid or misdirected pay, incorrect W-4 handling, dropped health insurance and long delays getting answers from district systems.
The complaints came during a public-comment block focused on Empower SF and followed a superintendent update acknowledging the problem. Superintendent Dr. Wayne told the board the district has opened a live call center operating 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. to take employee inquiries and has handled about 60 calls in a soft launch. He said the district brought in consultants and is reorganizing triage work to accelerate ticket resolution.
Teachers and classified staff said the call center hours are insufficient for late-start schools and that frontline staff cannot use school time to phone the help line. A special-education teacher said long-running errors have forced employees to use personal leave or incur financial penalties. One in-person commenter said he was owed $37,516 plus three months of health insurance. Multiple commenters said part-time employees had accrued sick-day balances reduced by incorrect time-entry multipliers.
A board-approved consultant, Erin Covington of A&M, presented a corrective-action plan earlier in the meeting. A&M reported it had completed a four-week triage and recommended reorganizing the work into six teams: case management to close Zendesk tickets, a root-cause team, two teams for process and system fixes, and an analytics team. A&M told the board it did not recommend abandoning Empower SF immediately but urged redeployment of resources to fix people, process and configuration issues.
Union representatives and teachers urged faster action and immediate payments. Several speakers called for the district to consider returning to the previous payroll system or to adopt an off-the-shelf alternative if Empower SF cannot be reliably fixed. Board members and the superintendent said staff are prioritizing operational fixes and will post interim goals and follow-up reports as the work proceeds.
The board did not take a formal vote specific to payroll at the meeting; however, the issue shaped subsequent budget and personnel discussions. Dr. Wayne said the district will finalize interim operational steps by January and align the next year's budget and staffing plans to prevent recurrence.
The meeting record shows widespread public concern and detailed individual accounts of harm; the board and administration face continuing pressure to both pay owed wages and to show measurable progress in system reliability.
