SAN FRANCISCO. (KRON) – It is payday for educators in the San Francisco Unified School District, but some teachers didn’t get paid. It is a lingering problem with the new payroll system is the issue.
Cassondra Curiel is the president of the United Educators of San Francisco. She tells KRON4, “It doesn’t matter which specific issue it is at this point; we are now in September entering October. Rent is due tomorrow!”
Some SFUSD teachers have worked full-time for the last four weeks before finding out they did not get paid.
“All of us in education, it is not an unknown issue, we work paycheck to paycheck. We are not exorbitantly paid,” Curiel said.
Curiel represents 6,000 teachers in SFUSD. She says some of them are beginning to report not getting paid for the month of September.
The problem is connected to the district’s new payroll system launched back in January. By March, the teachers union staged a four-day sit-in at the SFUSD administration building in protest because teachers were not receiving their accurate pay.
Curiel tells KRON4, “Employees of SFUSD have spent the last nine months with stress, anxiety and full panic about whether or not they will be paid at all, accurately, and how much.”
Laura Dudnik, a spokesperson with SFUSD tells KRON4, “The transition from a very old antiquated system led to some errors.”
Dudnik talked about the upside of the new payroll system. “This system will have a lot to offer and will be, ideally, user-friendly, and once we address all of these issues, that is why we are transitioning to this new system because there is a lot for it to offer,” she said. “That’s what we are actively focusing on.”
Dudnik says the board of education is addressing the issues, including hiring a vendor to examine the problem with the new payroll system and providing additional staffing to process complaints from teachers who are not receiving their pay.
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Officials at SFUSD suggest any employee not receiving their pay should inform the district as soon as possible.