Metropolitan State University is grappling with payroll problems that have led to an as-yet undisclosed number of employees getting shorted thousands of dollars in summer pay and scheduled step increases, which were supposed to take effect on July 1.
Some of those problems probably won’t be fixed before Oct. 1, according to the university.
More on that in today’s Pioneer Press, here.
Administrators have been tight-lipped with the media about the snafus and declined to describe who and how many employees are impacted. Official notices to faculty and staff this month highlighted the problem with the overlooked step increases, but until the Pioneer Press story hit the web yesterday, the memos made no mention of the department heads who teach year-round and went to collect summer paychecks on Friday that should have amounted to $5,000 to $10,000. Instead, some of those “off-cycle” checks for summer “duty” hours totaled less than $10.
It’s unclear how widespread the problem is, and Metro State isn’t talking. However….
On Monday, President Sue Hammersmith and the President’s Council acknowledged the latest problems with logging off-cycle summer duty hours, making specific note of the newspaper’s reporting on the issue. See their memo below.
Past and present employees say high turnover, low morale and disarray in the human resources division is nothing new.
The Financial Management and HR Office were part of Murtuza Siddiqui’s job as Vice President/CFO of the University. Under him was HR Director Stephanie Miller.
Miller, an unpopular director with some, moved on not long ago to a job in the corporate offices of Best Buy.
Hammersmith recently stepped in to remove Siddiqui from oversight of the HR department. Meanwhile, Edna Comedy, the new chief human resources officer, has inherited a serious backlog in work and an HR staff that is new to the division.
Here’s how that would look to visual thinkers:
Previous organization:
President-Hammersmith>CFO-Siddiqui>HR Director-Miller
Current organization:
President-Hammersmith>HR Director-Comedy
A little bird says Metro State now has its payroll processed by the MNSCU system in Redwood Falls Fergus Falls, Minn. The Scoop is checking how long that has been the case.
Here is the note from the President’s Council, issued Monday, Sept. 9:
To: Metropolitan State Faculty and Staff
From: President’s Council
Subject: Payroll Issues
Date: September 9, 2013Dear Colleagues:
We are writing to bring you an update on our work to correct the payroll delivery concerns about which we wrote to you on Friday.
For those faculty colleagues whom we have identified as not having been paid on Friday (Sept. 6th), we are in the process of requesting issuance of off-cycle payroll checks. We continue to review other faculty assignments and payroll records to identify and remedy errors as rapidly as possible.
For members of AFSCME, MAPE, MMA, and MSUAASF who are due to receive scheduled “step” (or progression) increases, we will begin entering those increases into SCUPPS. They will be entered by October 1st, and will be retroactive to the progression date.
We want you to know that the St. Paul Pioneer Press has posted a story about this situation on their website today. A similar story will appear in the hard copy edition tomorrow.
We will continue to send frequent updates about the progress of these corrective measures.
Thank you.