Baltimore County teachers, staff concerned about ongoing payroll issues

Baltimore County teachers and staff say they are missing some paychecks, and they want the school district to fix the persistent errors.

Members of the Teachers' Association of Baltimore County (TABCO) are addressing concerns over missed pay, inaccurate deductions, and general confusion with 403 (b) retirement contributions, dues, and sick time.

The union blames the errors on the district's switch to Oracle to handle its payroll.  

"Our members want to be able to expect that they're going to get paid, that their pay is going to be correct, that they're going to know what their pay is," TABCO President Kelly Olds said. "I can appreciate that, a very large school system, moving to a new system, there are going to be some hiccups, but those are resolved quickly and transparently."

TABCO demands the district act

TABCO says payroll is a basic function for any employer and is demanding that the district take immediate action to fix it.

The teachers' union says it has spoken at past school board meetings about the persistent issues, even writing a letter to the Baltimore County Board of Education in September, in hopes that it will be resolved soon.

"I want to make sure that the school system knows that our members are paying attention, our members are involved, this is their pay," Olds said. "People being able to expect what is coming in on that paycheck, and then being able to pay their outgoing bills in a timely manner, has been a really high point of stress."

Teachers say they haven't had to inspect their paychecks this thoroughly in years.

"People are not being paid for all the work they've done. They're people who've still not been paid for the summer. Pay rates aren't correct," said Helene Groves, a teacher at Owings Mills Elementary School.

The union is now calling for a more permanent solution. It says issues have been fixed quickly, but that they shouldn't continue to happen.

Jonathan Falk says a teacher he works with at Sparrows Point Middle School didn't have deductions taken out of her check for weeks. Everything she owed was then taken out all at once.

"That right there is very frustrating, because that's hundreds of dollars that she wasn't expecting to lose at one time that she lost," said Falk, a special education teacher at Sparrows Point Middle School. "They're usually fixed fairly quickly, but they're not seeming to be fixed consistently." 

Baltimore County schools say issues were fixed

Baltimore County Public Schools said in a statement that the district has experienced a small number of issues. It says where there was a verified error, which has been corrected.

"As with any large-scale project rollout, BCPS has experienced a small number of issues that staff from Staff Relations, Human Resources, Information Technology, and Fiscal Services have worked to address promptly," BCPS said in a statement. "To our knowledge, all concerns regarding payroll have been addressed. Less than two percent of our 20,000+ workforce have reported issues with payroll – issues that were not the result of technical issues with Oracle—and where there has been a verified error, we have corrected those issues."