The San Francisco Unified School District, which last year introduced a costly and dysfunctional payroll system that underpaid and mispaid scads of its employees, has managed to once again miss a pay date for hundreds of its workers.
Some 815 of the district’s lower-paid workers — including lunch servers, janitors and clerks — did not receive an anticipated check July 12. Instead, they received an email July 11 from the district stating that it was “unable to implement that timeline successfully,” and indicating payment would be received in two weeks’ time, on July 26.
That’s an unanticipated two-week delay for SFUSD employees earning modest salaries, who last received a check all the way back in early June. According to the SEIU 1021 union, the average salary of the affected workers ranges between $55,000 and $64,000.
“We’re all in debt. We’re all struggling,” said Rashida Johnson, a family liaison at Hillcrest Elementary School. “I am definitely 100 percent accustomed to being stiffed by the district. I am so accustomed to that.”
After scores of affected workers contacted their union representatives and the district’s HR department — and after Mission Local contacted the district — employees on the evening of July 12 received an email stating they should receive a check no later than July 17.
‘I was prepared’
The district’s recent record on making timely payments is spotty enough that multiple district employees said they’d prepared for a payment problem ahead of time.
Antonaé Robertson, a senior clerk at Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, said she proactively put money aside in anticipation that there would be some manner of foul-up.
“I was prepared,” she says with a wry laugh. She was expecting a discrepancy, “but not like this! I was expecting I’d get the direct deposit and it wouldn’t be right. Like last year.”
Perhaps most galling for the affected nutrition workers, clerk typists, custodians and others is that SFUSD is, in effect, failing to pay them the money they already put aside. Robertson put aside more money in anticipation that the district wouldn’t get her the money she put aside.
The 815 workers are participants in California’s Classified School Employee Summer Assistance Program, in which low-paid district employees who do not work the summer months remit a portion of every paycheck back to the district so they’ll receive payments during the months that school is out of session. These funds from the employees are supplemented by money from the state, which matches the contributions of workers earning $70,000 or less up to 10 percent of their salary.
The SFUSD is merely the custodian for these funds. For the workers in question, this adds insult to injury.
“It’s not their money. It’s our money. We were expecting it, and we didn’t get it,” said Camelia Alcantar, a clerk at Guadalupe Elementary School. “It’s not like I’m working for some small little company. SFUSD is a big, reputable district.”
Alcantar flew out to Texas on July 12 to visit her grown children — the same day she was expecting the $200 she deducted from every paycheck and matching state funds to hit her bank account. That was a payment she figured would be about $4,200. She didn’t get it.
“I was counting on this money,” she said. “I’m just sick of all this.”
While the district acknowledged that it intended to make the payments by July 12, this date was presented as “preliminary,” and not something set in stone. The district offered no explanation as to why the payments were not made. Nor was there an explanation of how soon it became apparent to district management that the July 12 date was untenable — and if it would have been possible to give workers more warning than hours before they were expecting to be paid.
Workers noted that anyone not monitoring his or her work email during months when district employees are, by and large, not working would’ve missed the warning entirely.
“Every employee who has elected to participate in the CSESAP program will be paid their full amount,” read a statement from the district.
The SFUSD suffered through the disastrous rollout of the costly EmPowerSF payroll system in 2022, which managed to underpay, overpay and mispay employees, fail to make contributions to retirement accounts and healthcare systems and, in general, render reading through a payslip an anxiety-inducing experience for district workers.
Some of the 815 affected classified employees say that they suffered through EmPower-related mis-payments before their present situation, and are feeling fatigued.
“We hold so many roles people don’t see,” said Karis Zaldivar, a secretary at Willie L. Brown Middle School. “I am a councilor some days, a social worker some days, a translator. I like helping kids out. But this amount of work is overwhelming for them to not be paying us on time.”
You’d think this would have been cause to file a lawsuit on behalf of its membership a year ago. But our union leadership is busy playing at being performative socialist revolutionaries rather than advocating and fighting for teachers, paras, and staff. None of this would have happened if SFUSD didn’t think they could get away with it. And why did they think they could? Because they know our leadership is too scared, dumb, and inexperienced to do anything about it. I’m almost at the point of believing that the leadership is colluding with SFUSD. Otherwise, the incompetence is just staggering and shameful.
I’m a SFUSD para 20 years in this district. And I’m tired, disgusted and ashamed of working here. And the so called Union Leadership should be ashamed of themselves as well. They’re all in cahoots. How SFUSD can look at themselves in the mirror after this happens to so many people continuously is sickening. This is criminal behavior and they’re getting away with it. But oh well it’s just a few peoples salary at stake, not a big deal.
SFUSD cannot manage itself. They need to be taken over by the state or feds. The state letting this all go this long makes me thin they’re incompetent and corrupt too. They should have come in when Carranza was Supe.
A lot of us were supposed to see a full check with missing wages from the last pay period and a lot of us got absolutely nothing or I got very little. Not even an email from the district explaining what’s going on. I’m a para, I’m off with no pay for more than a month. I’m really embarrassed working for the school district.
Embarassing and unacceptable that in the tech capital of the world, we aren’t able to provide school employees with better and more efficient software to get paid
Where the HELL is Mayor London Breed on this?!?!? Did she have a MATRIX6 Premier to attend or a cameo appearance on Wemberly scheduked? Tut. Tut. Or???? Doesn’t the buck stop (or start) with her??? Why does she NEVER use her power to help people? Ugh. Come on London: Lead this city.
This is an an outrage! Why weren’t the employees at the top the ones with delayed pay. The audacity of this behavior exemplifies the class divide and exploitation that knows no bounds in this wealthiest of nations.
In pre-EMpower days, the district used to be able to immediately remedy an incorrect paycheck: you could walk into 135 van ness and they would cut you a check right there on the spot. Sfusd money is plentiful and this needs to be re-instituted as these mess ups have been going on for a year and 7 months into the not so new payroll system and there is no end in sight. Payroll problems are predictable and are continuing to occur.
UESF leadership and members alike are spending way too much time doing the work of the district- the mess ups of empower falls with the district: HR, SFUSD labor relations that is dragging its feet, the Superintendent, payroll, benefits, and the school board ——not the union or it’s members.
unfortunately, the union reps don’t really help, even with official grievances. They just disappear and no one replies. One leader went to Mexico in the height of Empower scandal, and didn’t reply for months on an issue that took SFUSD 9 months to reply to. Someone must be profiting from all this. PS People are not getting paid bc SFUSD is using the money for Empower, just like they did with the Reassignments, which btw our departments had to pay for and never reimbursed.
FYI those were not the only employees affected. For year round clerks they offered us Flex Time to work 10 hours for 4 days and get one day off. They shorted us 8 hours because Empower couldn’t figure out the schedule changes and wanted OT codes when it was not OT, so it only paid out 8 hours a day and one day with no pay thereby cheating us out of 8 hours
Wow, there is just no excuse to mess up payroll! Especially for those earning well under a 6-figure salary and just barely getting by. NO excuse!
Why hasn’t SFUSD severed ties with Empower? This system has consistently screwed over teachers, paras, and other staff all school year. To not pay your employees on time or at all is wage theft. What’s not clicking SFUSD? Y’all need to get your act together and fast!
To me, from where I stand this is on purpose and opportunistic because of public structures. Someone got a deal and ensured the payouts would keep enriching someone’s friends. I see nothing but corruption as a distinct pattern but unfortunately I can’t prove it. Since it’s public domain no one gets punished except our kids and workers. It’s pretty evil. Someone got rich off this at the expense of little kids most valuable asset: education.
SFUSD should have to pay the wages with interest and penalties.
I’m a job seeker trying to get part-time employment as a noon monitor with the SFUSD. Can’t. Personnel office of the SFUSD doesn’t answer the phone. Empower is a joke. There is a lack of communication between the District office and the job seeker. Unacceptable and disgusting. Just close all the schools and the students will grow up and fit right in with the rest of society. Unbelievable.
Why would you seek a job with SFUSD? There are lots of jobs to be had out there. If you sign up to be abused, don’t come crying to the general public when you get abused.
This is wage theft, pure and simple. The SF teacher’s union has dropped the ball – they are either in over their head or incompetent.
Why do you think the teacher’s union is responsible? These school district employees are paid by the SF school district, and it’s the district that is late in paying them.
Or complicit.
The incompetence is staggering. On both sides,
Teachers are in a different union called UESF but this is unacceptable.
Pilar, you are correct. The workers mentioned by this journalist (clerks, custodians, etc) are represented by a separate union (SEIU).
With that being said, many workers impacted by the unaccounted, unexplained delay of fund dispersal are Paraprofessionals, classified employees that support students & teachers in the classroom. We are represented by UESF. I will say that I was contacted by a representative from our union on Wednesday morning who noted they were taking action steps.
Hearing that those much needed funds were going to be released in 2 weeks with no transparency/explanation was simply devastating to hear on the last day of Summer School, no less!
Love you Mission Local!
Do we know the process and the people behind SFUSD going with a fully custom Infosys designed system and doing the migration themselves with no prior testing? I think those are correct details from previous investigations. At other companies heads would roll and things blocked.