Since launching a $95-million computer system six months ago, the Los
Angeles Unified School District has been beset by programming
glitches, hardware crashes and mistakes by hurriedly trained clerical
staff. The result: tens of thousands of teachers, cafeteria workers,
classroom aides and others have been underpaid, overpaid or not paid
at all.
The hardest hit have been the roughly 48,000 certificated employees --
teachers and others who require a credential to perform their jobs.
Their complicated, varied job assignments and pay scales have
perplexed computer programmers and, this month, an additional 3,900
people received incorrect paychecks.

That total would have been higher had the district not caught "a
number of. . . system defects" and "administrative errors," before
paychecks were written, acknowledged David Holmquist, the district's
director of risk management and insurance.
Anedra Harper knew she would never get rich working as a teacher in
Los Angeles' public schools. The trade-off, the 32-year-old figured,
was the satisfaction of doing a job that mattered.

But for three months this summer, Harper, who makes about $40,000
teaching learning and emotionally disabled students at a city high
school, was not paid. With mortgage payments, bills and grocery
receipts piling up, she eventually took out $15,000 in loans to stay
afloat.

"I absolutely love teaching and working with kids," she said, "but
this has been a nightmare."

The continued payroll problems have become a serious stumbling block
for Supt. David L. Brewer, who inherited the Business Tools for
Schools technology project when he was hired in November. His early,
emphatic promises to fix the mess only exacerbated the situation as
district hotlines and an emergency office set up in L.A. Unified's
downtown headquarters were immediately overwhelmed.

Union leaders have pounced on the issue, lambasting the district for
not doing more. United Teachers Los Angeles took the district to
court, unsuccessfully seeking a ruling to force a remedy. No quick fix
appears possible: District officials say that several more months are
needed and have already set aside an additional $37 million to pay for
the repairs.

That does not bode well for employees. With only one payday each month
-- as is the case for most district staff -- when something goes awry,
carefully laid plans to pay bills and budget for such basics as
groceries and gas quickly become complicated.

"I don't even know what my base pay is anymore!" an exasperated
Beverly Ann Ball said recently to a group of teachers who nodded in
agreement as they waited for help at the district office. Over the
last four months, Ball's paychecks have varied dramatically,
fluctuating from $1,033 to $3,269.

Teachers continue to take the brunt of the abuse because they work 10
months out of the year, but are scheduled to be paid 12 times.

The payroll system's software was not designed to correctly spread
out, or annualize, the salaries, Holmquist said. Programmers have
begun the two- to three-month process of rewriting the software from
scratch using more complex programs while district officials consider
scrapping the 12-month pay calendar, Holmquist said.

Meanwhile, the district is in talks with Deloitte Consulting, the firm
hired to plan and implement the three-phase technology project that
began in 2005. District officials are negotiating a possible repayment
of some of the more than $55 million the firm has received, or an
increase in the resources and staffing it provides to the district. If
talks fail, district officials said, a lawsuit is possible.

"All of the potential remedies are on the table," said Holmquist, who
oversees the district's efforts to fix the payroll problems. Holmquist
took control after the district's chief financial officer, Charles
Burbridge, left his post this summer amid increasing dissatisfaction
with his performance.

A spokeswoman for Deloitte declined to respond to questions regarding
the company's alleged role, saying in an e-mail: "We empathize with
those district employees who have been affected by the transition to a
new payroll system."

Los Angeles Unified is not alone in its troubles. The Los Angeles
Community College District experienced similar problems, albeit on a
smaller scale, after implementing the same system in 2005. The state
government, meanwhile, has decided to phase in a similar project next
year.