SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — Teachers in the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) are not receiving their accurate pay. In some cases, teachers are overpaid. Others are underpaid, and some have not received paychecks at all during their monthly payroll cycle
KRON4 asked one teacher how long this has been an issue.
“Over a year now,” said Rori Abernathy who is a seventh-grade math teacher at James Denman Middle School. “It’s been since (like that) January of 2022.”
It was at that time that SFUSD transitioned to a new human resources system for payroll, time and attendance called Empower. However, problems followed soon after and continued into the new year.
“My benefits were cuts of February 2022,” said Rianamay Gadduang who is a paraprofessional educator at Denman Middle School. “I didn’t realize until I had tried to go to the doctor for myself in June, and my doctor’s office told me that my benefits were no longer eligible”
At a recent schoolboard meeting, SFUSD Superintendent Matt Wayne announced progress is being made — stating that from last November to February 2023, a backlog of over 10,000 outstanding payroll tickets was cut in half.
The school district spokesperson sent KRON4 a statement that reads in part:
“Since declaring a payroll state of emergency last November, a case management team has reduced the backlog of tickets by closing more tickets than are being opened, and have identified at least 40 unique root causes of payroll issues.”
“I am not even confident at this point that my paycheck and my taxes were done correctly. I don’t know that,” Abernathy said.
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“I just want them to fix it,” Gadduang said. “I want my money back. I paid a lot of out-of-pocket appointments — probably thousands of dollars, and I was already being deducted.”
The United Educators of San Francisco filed a complaint with the California Employment Relations Board. The results of that process are yet to be decided in San Francisco.
