Baltimore City Leaders Hope To Fix Payroll Problems By February 19
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Another week has passed, and still many Baltimore City employees have not received a regular paycheck due to a new payroll system that was rolled out just before the New Year.
On Wednesday, a Baltimore City Council investigative hearing was held to address the issues.
The Baltimore City Department of Finance, Human Resources and IT discussed the ongoing payroll problems, with the hope of fixing them by February 19.
The new payroll system is called Workday, and the hope was it would modernize things with a shift away from paper timesheets.
Rich Langford, President of Local 734 Baltimore Firefighters, represents 1,200 active firefighters and EMS members.
"It's very, very concerning," Langford said. "I don't even know if our payroll this week is going to be correct, because I haven't been told what problems have been fixed."
Baltimore City Councilman Mark Conway called the situation "unacceptable."
"We can all agree that this situation is unacceptable," he said.
Baltimore City Finance Director Henry Raymond broke down the primary issues into three areas: data, configuration and human error.
"The number one goal is to make sure everyone is paid on time and in full," Raymond said. "Most of our challenges are a result of entering and approving time after a pay period closes."
Raymond said the City has issued more than $5,000 off-cycle checks since the problems started, a number officials have been tracking to see the impact of the issues.
"An off-cycle check is issued to make an adjustment to a regular payroll check," Raymond said.
The City highlighted a number of corrective actions put in place, such as continuing to improve communication and additional employee system training.
"It's not going to be a quick fix. There's going to have to be ongoing training, refresher training, as the system gets updated," Quinton Herbert, the Director of the Baltimore City Department of Human Resources, said.
The City's Department of Finance said, to date, nearly 69% of issues have been resolved and 19% remain open.
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