SFUSD admits not filing wage reports with state in latest payroll issue

SAN FRANCISCO – The San Francisco Unified School District is apologizing to teachers and other district employees after admitting that it did not file three quarterly wage reports with the State last year, impacting tax returns and refunds.

In a statement on Tuesday, Superintendent Matt Walsh said while the district withheld state taxes from employees and paid them to the state, SFUSD did not list the amount of taxes paid by each worker.

Walsh said the district is in the process of filing a final report identifying what taxes each employee paid and is working with the State Employment Development Department and Franchise Tax Board to resolve the issue.

“We are deeply sorry for the stress and concern this has caused our staff and their families. SFUSD is undertaking accountability measures to ensure this does not happen again,” the superintendent said. “We are urgently working to rectify this error and the possible cascading impacts for employees.”

SFUSD said they are aware that some workers have not been able to file their tax returns and other employees were told that their expected refunds were impacted.

The district has launched an investigation into what caused the error, but has not determined if the issue has any connection with EMPowerSF, the district’s payroll and human resources computer system.

Since last year, teachers in the district have raised numerous issues regarding payroll.

Last March, several educators held a three-night “sleep-in” at district headquarters after at least 1,000 teachers and workers went  weeks being unpaid or receiving partial paychecks. 

The sleep-in ended after the district agreed to pay owed money plus interest and reimbursed educators for late fees and penalties, along with agreeing to resolve payroll issues within 72 hours.

In November, the United Educators of San Francisco filed a grievance with the California Public Employees Relations Board, saying the district had failed to fix the issues.

“Far from streamlining payroll and eliminating errors as intended, the District’s new EMPower system has been an unmitigated disaster from the start,” according to the complaint. “Hundreds of UESF bargaining unit members have been unpaid, underpaid, and/or incorrectly stripped of benefits since the District first began using its EMPower system. These errors continue to the present day.”

In response to the complaint, Wayne declared a “payroll state of emergency,” intended to help the district resolve the problem. 

“It is long overdue for us to escalate this issue and take aggressive action,” Wayne said in a news release at the time.