Peoplesoft, payroll blunders, and the Palm Beach Post

A study in sarcasm from the Palm Beach Post editorial board.

Here's a way for the Legislature to pay teachers more: Just require all school districts to use the same payroll software that Palm Beach County has been using.

As The Post reported last week, the district's PeopleSoft system overpaid 345 teachers and other workers by about $912,000. The district wants those employees to pay the money back. But why not think outside the box? Just call it a lottery-based perk and use it as a recruiting tool.

Of course, one reason the district needs the cash returned is that fixing the glitchy system, which cost taxpayers $18 million, is going to be so expensive. Last week, the school board approved $336,000 to hire a firm that says it can make the software perform correctly. That's on top of $500,000 the district expects to pay annually for experts it previously had to hire to make the system run properly.

The school district bought the PeopleSoft package with the understanding that the software could do it all. That's proved to be kind of true; in addition to overpaying some people and paying some people the right amount, it also managed to underpay hundreds of workers.

LMAO! Is the Post and Randy Schultz taking lessons in sarcasm from me? I do get occasional visitors from the paper.

Note- I've blogged about the payroll mess previously in this post.

The question remains- Can the School board dump this payroll program for something that actually works rather than pour more money down the drain. Plus, how about suing Peoplesoft for damages? The corporation then may supply the help to fix the mess for free, which they should.

Linked to- Bright & Early, Cao,