Payroll problems are inexcusable

Re “Monitor to oversee school payroll repair,” Sept. 17

How did the Los Angeles Unified School District get into this payroll fiasco? It’s not easy to get the facts because everyone in the decision-making process to purchase the payroll software has left the district.

Bringing a monitor onboard is much too little and too late. Sinking another $10 million into this failed system will not fix it. Anyone who believes that the system will be repaired in a few months is not dealing with reality. It is logistically impossible to organize a team and have that team drill down to the root causes of failure and to complete repairs of such a massive system in such a short time frame.

It is important, right now, that the LAUSD begin dealing with the reality of putting in work-arounds, manual if necessary, to get payroll records corrected before W-2s are due out Jan. 31. As it stands now, those W-2s will be produced by the failed software that is in place.

James Russell Robinson

Signal Hill

LAUSD board member Richard Vladovic said, “I am losing confidence in our ability to do what we need to do for our people on the front line.” Those of us on the front line -- teachers -- have already lost confidence. Vladovic is too late.

Tales teachers can tell about the payroll debacle are harrowing. What is astonishing to us is that after all this time, there are still people who are not getting paid. The district knows who they are; they’ve been yelling and shouting down at the Beaudry offices. If it’s known who they are, why can’t the problem be fixed? And these are the people who lecture teachers about accountability and rigor?

It would be funny if it weren’t so painful to people who deserve to be paid properly.

Phil Brimble

Los Angeles

Re “Wanted -- payroll Mr. Fix-It for L.A. schools,” column, Sept. 19

As a quality-assurance engineer for a large insurance company (now retired), we tested new software and changes to existing software.

No new software or changes to existing systems were implemented until proved to be free of flaws in the dummy system in which they were tested.

Programmers generally do not produce a perfect system on their first try. The testers identify problems and work with the programmers until all problems have been corrected. Only then should a system be implemented.

It seems that either someone in a management position created an arbitrary date by which the payroll system must be put into production, whether working properly or not, or the testing department is either nonexistent or sadly lacking in knowledge of testing methods, procedures and verification standards.

If consultants must be brought in to fix the mess, it would behoove someone to evaluate the entire LAUSD information technology department to see where the weaknesses and inabilities are.

Norma Mason

Glendale