Payroll Update - November 7, 2022

Information for Employees, November 7, 2022

Good afternoon, employees.  We hope your week is off to a great start.  Please take time to review the following update from finance, payroll, and human resources.

Customer service team  

The customer service team, which serves as a liaison for employees with a payroll-related issue and the finance, payroll, and human resources departments, has completed its visits to schools.  Last week, the team held two days of “office hours” at the Central Office and Rader Center for any employees who did not have an opportunity to meet with a team member when the team visited their school.  

Our focus for this week 

This week, payroll does not have any regular pay runs to process, which will give staff as well as our support personnel more time to focus attention on:

• researching and resolving outstanding issues;
• excess deductions; 
• retirement files for ORBIT and Admin Partners/National Life Group; and
• addressing global issues (which are issues that affect a group of employees).

The current global issues are:

• Health Insurance Escrow: This is used to pay health insurance during the no-pay summer months when teachers are not working and do not receive a paycheck.  A number of 10- and 11-month employees did not receive this deduction in September or October.  We are working with CherryRoad Technologies to identify these individuals and begin making adjustments to ensure that the employees have sufficient funds to cover their summer health insurance premiums.
• ASPIRE Employees:  These employees work in the ASPIRE afterschool program and are earning compensatory (comp) time for their work rather than being paid.  We have submitted a service ticket to CherryRoad Technologies for a resolution to this issue.
• Summer Feeding Program:  A number of school nutrition employees were paid their regular hourly rate for working during the summer feeding program rather than the premium rate.  We have submitted a service ticket to CherryRoad Technologies for a resolution to this issue.
• Overpayments:  Some employees were overpaid as a result of the payroll conversion.  We are working with the individual employees to recover the funds so their year-to-date earnings are accurate.

Additional Information

Payroll, finance, and human resources personnel continue to work on individual employee issues that may not be included in the global issues list above.  There were minimal system-related issues with our bi-weekly payroll (for classified employees) that was paid out last Friday.  The issues we experienced were caused primarily by an employee’s time being entered incorrectly in Oracle and/or the time not having supervisor approval by the submission deadline.  

We appreciate all that you do to support the students and families of Gaston County Schools.  We hope you have a good week and enjoy the Veterans Day holiday on Friday.

Gary Hoskins, Chief Financial Officer