Case Study

South Washington County School District 833 is a suburban district located southeast of St. Paul. It consists of the communities of Cottage Grove, St. Paul Park and Newport, most of Woodbury, and portions of Afton and Denmark, and it covers an area of 84 square miles.

The population of the district is about 95,000, and it includes about 16,400 K-12 students. The district has 14 elementary schools for grades K-6, four junior high schools for grades 7-9, and two high schools for grades 10-12.

The district also operates an Alternative Learning Center for grades 7-12. New elementary schools opened in 2001, 2002 and 2003. The district's new strategic plan, Focus on the Future, includes the primary goal of being in the top 10 percent of all state school districts in Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment test results and ranked number one among districts of comparable size and demographic factors.

The challenge: streamlining payroll processing, reducing costs, and increasing employee responsibility and accountability for time-off reporting

For a number of years the South Washington Country School District struggled to maintain a payroll and time-off system that had steadily outgrown the capacity of its administrative staff—specifically the Payroll Department and individual school building secretaries and office coordinators—to support and manage it. This challenge manifested itself in a number of ways, including the following:

Limited pay stub information – The district was able to provide only a limited amount of time-off information on paycheck stubs. As a result, employees had to frequently call the Payroll Department to find out more about their available time off or related details.

Payroll staff limitations and service challenges – As the district's number of employees grew over the years, payroll processing gradually took up an increasing amount of the Payroll Department's time. The situation got to the point where the department's payroll specialists had to regularly put in overtime to complete their work. They also had to designate certain hours when they would not take phone calls so they could ensure the payroll would be done on time.

Increased costs for printing and mailing checks – Costs for printing paychecks and envelopes and related mailing costs continued to increase proportionately as the district's employee base grew.

Compromised effectiveness in managing employee time-off – For many years the district relied on school building secretaries and office coordinators to fill out teachers' time-off vouchers and then, if necessary, to follow up with individual teachers to make sure the vouchers were turned in. These extra duties added to what was already a significant workload for these administrative staff members.