Most if not all of the Teachers Paid – What now of Compensation?
Most if not all of the teachers that missed payment last Novopay round have now been paid although whether in full or nor remains a question as there are no payslips amongst the group I have been dealing with. Some have been paid out of the accounts of the schools they were working for but paid none the less. Novopay is still not completely up to date.
It would appear that the bulk of teachers not paid were relief teachers or casual school staff many of the relief teachers found that their Ministry of Education (MinEdu) numbers had been lost and new identities had to be created. The responsibility for this can only rest with the Novopay implementation and the Novopay Board of Governance. Schools had the details but were unable to process them despite having advised the Novopay support desk up to two weeks prior to the payroll payment date. The ministry now claims only 19 teachers in total did not receive any payment. While I personally find this hard to believe, perhaps it is true and the answer is in the way I have been asking the question perhaps I should have asked how many teachers and ancillary staff expecting payment had missed out.
A payroll system of this size is a critical system and should have undergone rigorous testing prior to its implementation. One can only imagine that the ministry staff involved are paid under another payroll programme or I’m sure greater attention would have been paid to the detail.
It’s coming up to the second pay round under Novopay and one would hope that this one will be completely free of system errors. But this raises the question of compensation for those that missed out. No person should have to disclose their personal financial situation to prove injury for a payment they were contractually entitled to.
I suggest to the MinEdu that they make an additional payment to the affected staff equal to the payment that was missed. This would make the payments directly proportional to the missed salary/wages of the individuals. As there are only 19 people involved this should be relatively inexpensive and the money could be recovered from the bonus budget for Senior Management and IT Department within the Ministry. They need to do something quickly or lose any good faith or trust they have left.
Many payments were not received till a week or more later and no effort has been made by the MinEdu to contact the people affected and discuss compensation. Over all it has been a period of denial and spin for the MinEdu. Hopefully we can expect more honesty in the future.
I understand and copleetmly sympathise with the kids who are bullied. I was bullied when I was in school, but I am not in school anymore and I still get bullied. I almost commited suicide after I was, both bullied and sexually assaulted when I was workimg at a naval base in New Hampshire. The perv laughed about it then bragged about it, and when I informed the higher ups they couldn’t have cared less.