SFUSD Superintendent Announces Agreement with Teachers Union Related to Payroll Concerns

San Francisco (March 17, 2022) - The San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) has reached an agreement with United Educators of San Francisco (UESF) as part of the district’s efforts to resolve outstanding payroll issues. The SF Board of Education will vote on the tentative Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between SFUSD and UESF at its regular meeting on March 22, 2022.

“We remain committed to ensuring every staff member receives all of the pay they are owed,” Superintendent Dr. Vincent Matthews said. “I want to again extend my deepest apologies to every employee who has been impacted in any way as a result of our transition to a new payroll system.”

“I am grateful to the district and our labor representatives for working together to reach this agreement,” SF Board of Education President Jenny Lam said. “Every hard working staff member in our district must get paid. We are working tirelessly to ensure that this happens in the most timely and transparent way possible. I’m grateful to the district and our partners in labor for collaborating on this effort.”

Per the agreement with UESF, the district agrees to make whole any UESF employee who reports a reduction in base pay due to a payroll error within three business days of confirmation that the employee followed district protocols and the error still occurred. This includes remitting payment for income loss and any corresponding contributions owed for contractual or statutory fringe benefits. If an employee is not made whole within three business days, the district agrees to pay the employee the balance owed plus 15% interest per annum. 

For any UESF member who experienced a reduction in pay due to payroll error and consequently incurred either penalty or late-fee costs for non-payment on credit cards or mortgages, including any bank overdraft fees, the district will reimburse the costs retroactive to Feb. 1, 2022.

Starting Monday, March 21 all employees will be able to input COVID-19 sick leave, including any sick leave that was COVID-related that has already been taken. Per SFUSD’s health and safety agreement with our labor partners and state law, SFUSD is offering an additional 10 days of sick leave for employees to be taken for COVID-19 related reasons.

Since SFUSD transitioned to the new system on January 3, 2022, the district has received 1,003 reports of underpayment between January 3 and March 15 and has been actively investigating each individual report. Of those reports, only 25 remain to be resolved.

SFUSD’s new system for payroll, time and attendance, and other human resources’ functions replaced a number of workflows and processes that have been in place for 17 years. In the process of shifting from antiquated systems and processes to new ways of working, issues came up that have impacted payments for some employees. 

Staff will continue working to investigate and remedy each individual issue of non-payment or underpayment and to identify any error patterns caused by a new process or system configuration so that corrections are made for subsequent pay periods. 

Some of the most common issues for those who are missing payments appear to be that employees with leaves and varying work schedules and/or concurrent/multiple positions were not migrated smoothly into the new system.

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