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.

The solution: Skyward's Employee Access Program

A couple of years after the introduction in 2000 of the finance modules in Skyward's PaC program, South Washington County School District made the decision to switch from Character, a DOS-based system, to the Windows-based PaC system. Shortly after moving to PaC, the district also decided to adopt the Employee Access module, which was included in the program.

According to Patty Norwig, the district's payroll manager, it was a "no brainer" decision because the district saw the program as a great opportunity to get more employees involved in direct deposit.

Norwig says that before moving to Employee Access the district had about 40 percent of its employees in direct deposit. "We had started doing some incentives and different things to get people to try direct deposit, and that worked a little bit. But it was really Employee Access that helped us with that final push," she says.

As a result of the district's deliberate, gradual implementation and the eventual widespread acceptance of Employee Access, all but three of the district's 2,600 employees are currently enrolled in direct deposit.

Skyward's Employee Access gives district employees convenient, easy access to their payroll information

One of the immediate benefits of Employee Access was that it allowed district employees to see much more information about their earnings and time off than what was availably previously with their pay stubs.

Norwig says that initially there was some apprehension among employees about the change to direct deposit and viewing check information online. However, once the implementation was under way, she says employees' concerns gradually disappeared. "Once we rolled out Employee Access and its online capabilities, our employees were pleasantly surprised with how well it worked, how much information they had and how simple it was. They really liked it."

Norwig adds that one program feature the employees especially like is the ability to view their W-2 forms, which has been helpful to them with income tax planning.

Another benefit of the increased information available through Employee Access has been a reduction in the number of phone calls to the Payroll Department. Employees can now go quickly online and find the latest information about their time off without having to contact a payroll specialist for assistance. This has saved a significant amount of time for payroll staff and allowed them to focus on other tasks.

Skyward's Employee Access provides the district with additional employee information for enhanced communication

In addition to offering greater payroll detail, Employee Access allows the district to obtain other helpful information as well. Norwig says the district uses the program's defined fields a lot as well as some of its data mining reports to obtain insurance information.

"These are helpful with things like insurance open enrollment so we can follow up and determine if employees' enrollment forms are in. We've also used this information to create surveys," she says.

Norwig says another helpful tool is the program's profile data capability report. The district uses it to provide employees with a snapshot of their current insurance and flexible spending elections.

Skyward's Employee Access helps the district better manage employee time-off processes and documentation

One of the key benefits of Employee Access for the South Washington County School District is that it has helped place the responsibility on individual teachers for managing their time off. Previously this was handled by school building secretaries and office coordinators, who had to fill out time-off vouchers and then many times had to follow up with teachers to make sure these were turned in.

In addition, payroll specialists had to manually key in teachers' time-off vouchers, which greatly added to their workload. As a result, they frequently had to put in overtime to ensure that the payroll would get done.

Now teachers use Employee Access to completely manage their time off. They can go online to see immediately what their available time off is, and they can complete and submit vouchers themselves.

According to Norwig, this has been a welcome development for the building secretaries, office coordinators and payroll specialists. For the secretaries and office coordinators, it has helped free up valuable time that they can devote to other tasks, and it has given them more of a feeling of control as they know exactly which employees are out of the building at any given time. For the payroll specialists, it has helped them significantly reduce their overtime hours.

"Employee Access has helped put everything back into a manageable workload," Norwig says.

Skyward's Employee Access helps the district reduce costs

By utilizing Skyward's Employee Access module, the South Washington County School District has been able to successfully implement a direct deposit system. This has resulted in the virtual elimination of printed paychecks and a dramatic reduction in costs for postage and printing envelopes.

"Our savings are over $15,000 a year in bank, printing, supplies and mailing costs," says Norwig, adding that this number represents true "out of pocket" expenses that are no longer incurred.

Conclusion: Employee Access helps the South Washington County School District achieve multiple operating objectives including reduced costs

By adopting Employee Access, the South Washington County School District has been able to use the program to help it enhance communication, streamline operations, reduce payroll processing costs and improve time-off management and reporting. Among the more notable achievements realized through the program has been the ability of district employees to obtain detailed payroll information on a 24/7 basis without having to contact district staff for help, as well as to completely manage their personal time-off themselves.