The State of Hawaii is in the final stages of its rollout of a new payroll system, which provides modern tools for managing time and payrolls, and also allows employees direct online access to their payroll information, from bank and direct deposit info to tax forms and pay statements.

The Department of Education and University of Hawaii are the last departments to switch over to the new system, which will happen in time for the January 4, 2019 pay day.

This apparently represents a two-month delay, according to the Hawaii State Teachers Association.

The system was originally scheduled to be implemented in October with Nov. 5 paycheck being issued under the new system.

However, just as HSTA was set to help provide our own reminders, the state announced that HawaiiPay implementation for the DOE and charter schools with DOE payroll services will have a delayed implementation.
The State of Hawaii has determined a schedule extension was necessary to allow for additional testing before going live on the new Hawaii Information Portal (HIP). The Hawaii State Department of Education (HIDOE) and the University of Hawaii concurred.

Currently, the delay is pushed back to implementation in December with the first paycheck under the new system to be issued January 4, 2019.

There is one additional little detail that could cause confusion. Employees that have their paychecks deposited directly into bank accounts will have to reenter their financial institution and banking information directly into the system in order for direct deposits to continue uninterrupted. UH employees have been given a short window from December 3-14, 2018 to log into the system and provide the required information. Since this includes the last week of classes as well as finals, always a busy time of year, I would guess that a lot of people might miss the deadline.

A letter sent to state employees earlier this year explained the problem.

Unfortunately, your current bank and credit union direct deposit details are not formatted in our old payroll system in such a way that they can be moved to the new Hawaii Information Portal. We need you to set up your direct deposit(s) by using Employee Self-Service. This will ensure that your first paycheck from the Hawaii Information Portal is electronically deposited into your bank or credit union.

Hmmmm. It would be interesting to hear more about why that transfer of data from the old system to the new system couldn’t be done as part of getting the new system up and running. Was this really a technical impossibility, or simply something that wasn’t included in the specifications for the project?

And the University of Hawaii Professional Assembly, the faculty union, reports that its members recently faced a series of payroll problems that were likely exacerbated by the shortcomings of the outgoing computer system. According to an August 2018 post on the UHPA website:

The last four faculty paychecks illustrated the problems within DAGS and the ongoing issues when a state agency doesn’t know UHPA and takes some authority away from UH payroll. A brief recap of the mistakes that UHPA identified and ensured there were corrections.

Pursuant to the U.S. Supreme Court Janus v AFSCME decision effective June 27, 2018, dues deduction from nonmembers were to end. On July 5, the Department of Accounting & General Services (DAGS) deducted dues from UHPA nonmembers and no dues deduction were made from members. The dues from nonmembers, which were inappropriately deducted, were deposited to an escrow account established by UHPA. UHPA notified DAGS of their error. DAGS was unable to refund dues from nonmembers deducted from July 27 – June 30. UHPA prepared checks for the refund and checks were mailed to all nonmembers on August 3.

On July 20, DAGS again deducted union dues from UHPA nonmembers. The nonmembers’ dues portion was deposited into the UHPA escrow account. Refunds were made by DAGS with the Aug 5 pay check. UHPA members’ dues deduction was deducted as SD725 and SD726 to correct the mistakes made earlier.

UHPA identified further issues with the August 5 payroll, for those UHPA members whose monthly salary ended in an odd amount, $1.00 was added to the dues deduction instead of $.01. The $.99 correction was made by DAGS on Aug 20.

On August 20, UHPA noticed that 9 month faculty received their negotiated pay increase but DAGS did not recalculate the dues. You will see the DAGS correction on your Sept 5 pay check.

The series of incidents have been frustrating for both UHPA staff and members affected by DAGS’ mistakes. UHPA filed a Prohibited Practice with the Hawaii Labor Relations Boards seeking to remedy these problems and ensure the State is compliant with their obligations under the Hawaii collective bargaining law. UHPA is seeking a resolution that will establish a clear procedure that ensures accuracy for dues collection by DAGS.

Meanwhile, here’s some background from an article in Hawaii Business magazine back at the beginning of 2013, which gives a good sense of the problems the state has faced because of its antiquated computer systems, and the challenges of updating.