Dozens of Rochester City School District employees and union representatives addressed the board Oct. 30, describing ongoing payroll and benefit errors after the district’s July move to the Oracle platform and demanding a public timeline, hardship reimbursements and accountability.

The district’s finance team said it has been working with Oracle and outside consultants to identify and correct errors and that the board approved a walk‑on resolution, numbered 2‑53, to allow additional vendor support. Commissioner Santiago announced he would vote no; the motion carried with two nays recorded.

“This is a frustrating time. There’s conflicting information, misinformation, and this is creating a lot of frustration, confusion, anger, and hurt,” Board President Simmons said during the speaker forum introduction. Several public commenters said the system’s failures are harming employees’ ability to pay rent, buy food and meet medical needs.

Payroll department employee Susan Maxwell told the board: “The Oracle system is not the correct fit for the RCSD. It doesn’t work. It’s not just a payroll failure. It is a failure across the district.” Other employees described repeated help‑desk tickets, missing retirement and benefit contributions, duplicate health‑insurance deductions, and summer pay that never reached workers.

Union representatives and school staff said the problem has caused real‑world harms. “We have members dealing with homelessness because they were evicted from their homes along with the children who are students here in the district,” Jack Deas, a union representative, said during public comment.

CFO Edward McDowell and Superintendent Lesli Rosser gave a district update during the business meeting. They said the district is processing tickets, running off‑cycle payrolls where necessary and engaging consultants. McDowell reported that, since July, the district has issued roughly 4,000 off‑cycle checks totaling about $1.4 million to make employees whole where payments could be verified; staff have also reduced an open‑ticket backlog by several hundred items in recent weeks.

The board approved a walk‑on resolution (2‑53) to allow additional vendor support and funding related to Oracle implementation and remediation. The decision followed a separate vote to waive the 48‑hour rule to consider the walk‑on item. Commissioner Santiago said he could not support additional payments to Oracle given the scope of harms reported; his vote was recorded as a no.

District leaders said they are continuing to press Oracle and consultants for technical fixes, to expand on‑site triage and call‑center support, and to explore alternative platforms. “We need to make sure that we address that, and it’s going to be either by making Oracle the best that it can be for as long as it can be and or exploring opportunities that may offer different solutions,” Rosser said.

What the speakers asked for

Speakers and union leaders urged the board to require a public, itemized timeline for back pay, weekly status updates, hardship reimbursements (bank fees, late rent penalties) and firm milestones for either a corrected Oracle implementation or a vendor replacement. Several employees asked for interest on late pay and explicit accountability for costs tied to the rollout.

Board action and next steps

The board voted to consider and approve the walk‑on resolution to secure additional vendor support. McDowell described ongoing steps to strengthen triage and routing of help‑desk tickets, increase payroll staffing, and escalate technical issues with Oracle and consultants. He said some categories — notably duplicate insurance deductions and certain retroactive recalculations — were corrected in an off‑cycle run after the Oct. 19 pay period.

The district also told the board it is actively speaking with other payroll vendors, conducting discovery and requesting realistic implementation timelines; an update on vendor exploration is expected at the board’s November work session.

Provenance: Speaker forum and business meeting public comment and presentations Oct. 30, 2025 (public comments beginning at 06:23; district update at 03:31:41).