District officials tried to allay jangled nerves, saying that new systems typically come with stutter steps in implementation, but that staff was in place to address issues and fix the problems.
Labor leaders from the United Educators of San Francisco said that through two cycles of paychecks, problems remained. They sent a cease-and-desist letter to district officials Friday demanding they address the issues, which included incorrect deduction of union dues, as well as missing vacation pay and incorrect pay for substitutes during summer school.
Labor officials also said the new system had "no actual process for leaves, retirement or resignations."
"The District had well over a year, with several high-level staff assigned to lead the migration, to now hear that no one got trained, no one understands the system and that the system cannot actually do the things we need it to do," according to the letter signed by Beatrice Montenegro, union senior staff representative.
District officials did not immediately respond to specific complaints made by the union, but said the issues were not unexpected given the adjustments necessary for any new system.
School board president Phil Kim said that any new software will have challenges and that it's "critically important that issues get resolved quickly."
"Implementation of any new software will have its challenges, but I'm encouraged to hear that over 97 percent of the paychecks issued as of today have been accurate," he said. "We owe it to all of our staff to ensure their pay is whole and on time."
The new system launched on July 1, with officials saying that "based on the lessons learned from previous efforts," the district would be ready to cut immediate paychecks for anyone underpaid by $50 or more while also providing real-time updates on any known issues and resolutions.
The cost of Frontline, the new payment system, was $20 million, with an additional $2 million annually for ongoing costs.
Since July 22, the district has provided almost daily updates regarding the status of the system, acknowledging incorrect leave balances, tax calculations and other problems. The site has also offered multiple opportunities for training on the new system.
The school board voted in March 2024 to replace the previous system, EMPower, after a two-year effort to fix a litany of problems, including errors in pay as well as health and retirement benefits, leaving some employees temporarily short of funds for necessities or without medical coverage or payments into pensions.
In one case, a principal wrote a personal check for $4,500 to help a teacher cover rent until she was paid.
Employees filed thousands of complaints over the problems, leading to a declaration of a state of emergency in the district in November 2022, with a 60-person command center dedicated to resolving errors.
The initial contract for EMPower, a bespoke system built specifically for the district, was $9.5 million, which later ballooned to $13.7 million and then $35 million before it was discarded last month.
© 2025 the San Francisco Chronicle. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
