GASTON COUNTY, N.C. — After almost two years of Gaston County Schools employees asking "Where’s the money" due to payroll issues, there is a resolution in sight.
You may remember that back in January of 2022, the district switched to a new payroll system. It has caused problems ever since with employees missing money from their paychecks. The North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE) sued the district because of these payroll problems. The parties have since agreed to settle the lawsuit.
“It's been a rough road,” said Alexa Gram Feller, president of Gaston County's NCAE chapter.
The system changes were efforts by the district to upgrade the 30-year-old program it had. The new system operated by CherryRoad Technologies and Oracle became a nightmare for school employees and the district. It caused hundreds of educators to be paid incorrectly, with errors hitting 401(k) payments and retirement accounts.
“We had teachers that were overpaid,” said Gram Feller. "We had teachers that were underpaid thousands of dollars. We had a teacher, a permanent sub, that was not paid her entire salary that she was offered."
Gram Feller, who is also a fifth-grade teacher in the district, said many people left because of these issues.
“Morale in Gaston County Schools with many employees is kind of down because even I, to this day, print out every paycheck and put it next to each other to make sure I'm getting what I'm supposed to be paid,” she said. “I don't feel that I should have to do that, with a fine tooth comb every single paycheck.”
When the new system was rolled out, the NCAE met with the superintendent and other departments when issues would come up. She described it as an open-door policy, but then those meetings stopped.
The payroll issues, however, did not. In March 2023, the NCAE filed its suit against the Board of Education.
“Something had to be done, knowing that the issue continued and continued and continued,” said Gram Feller.
As of Tuesday, the parties have come to an agreement. This includes the district streamlining its system to have payroll issues resolved more quickly.
“That's holding them accountable, that they're going to have to look at it and they're going to have to say 'We either need more information, or it has been resolved or we're going to resolve this now,'” said Gram Feller. “They have 48 hours to reply back to anybody who has put into the ticketing system.”
Both Gram Feller and the district said they will continue to work together on personnel and other school-related matters
“It was put that we will meet, either bimonthly or monthly, back with the superintendent to have that open door conversation about pay stubs, payroll, anything like we used to because that door was shut down,” said Gram Feller.
State Representative Kelly Hastings said although his office was not involved in the day-to-day process, they encouraged parties to come together.
“That's that was the goal all along to have all the stakeholders working together, to make sure that that the process runs smoothly, as smoothly as possible, and just try to get help and satisfaction to everyone who's been affected,” said Hastings.
Gram Feller said this has been a collaborative effort with the district, and she hopes these resolutions help everyone move forward.
“I'm hoping that's what's going to happen that we can have that have that feeling of being welcomed back into the county office and having those kinds of conversations,” said Gram Feller.
Statement from Gaston County Schools, October 10, 2023:
The N.C. Association of Educators (NCAE) lawsuit against the board of education has been dismissed.
The NCAE and the individual plaintiffs agreed to voluntarily dismiss their claims against the board with prejudice. The board’s insurance company has agreed to pay $20,000 to the attorneys for the NCAE.
The board and NCAE agreed that school district administrators and representatives from the NCAE will continue to work together, as they have in the past, on personnel and other school-related matters.
It is important to point out that no one entity or organization is solely responsible for resolving our conversion-related payroll issues. The significant progress made to address issues related to our payroll conversion is the direct result of the diligent hard work of our payroll, finance, and human resources departments; the dedicated technical support from CherryRoad technologies and Oracle; and support from the N.C. Department of Public Instruction. Because of these collaborative efforts, our payroll system continues to be operational, and we are using it to run our bi-weekly and monthly payrolls to pay our employees on schedule.
Contact Jesse Pierre at jpierrepet@wcnc.com or follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.
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