‘This has been going on for a year’: State employees hold rally over ongoing payroll system problems

SALEM, Ore. — Oregon state workers with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 503 branch staged a rally at the Oregon State Library in Salem Thursday to protest what they said are still-ongoing technical issues with the state’s new payroll system and demand that Gov. Tina Kotek intervene.

The Oregon Department of Administrative Services (DAS) switched to a new payroll system called Workday at the beginning of 2023, and widespread reports quickly emerged of thousands of state workers encountering glitches and errors with their paychecks, including both overpayments and underpayments. 

The issues persisted for months, and two unions representing some state workers — the Oregon branch of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the Association of Oregon Corrections Employees — filed lawsuits about a year ago, both of which are still ongoing. SEIU Local 503 didn’t file a lawsuit, but the union said in a news release on Thursday that it has filed multiple grievances over the past year.

“This anxiety about a paycheck is so real for our workers. People are scared,” SEIU Local 503 executive director Melissa Unger can be heard saying in a video from the rally shared by the union. “Even if they’ve been paid correctly, their peers have not, and so, the fear that people have around getting paid for their own employment, for their work, runs so deep.”

The repeated payroll errors have resulted in employees having incorrect amounts deducted for taxes, according to SEIU’s news release, or having overpayment balances taken out of subsequent paychecks, which the union said is a violation of its collective bargaining agreement.

The union shared video of multiple state employees speaking to the crowd of supporters during the rally, describing their struggles over the past year. Jill Esparza, who works for the state Department of Justice, said she gets overpaid each month, resulting in deductions from each subsequent paycheck.

“I emailed the payroll department; they kept getting back to me saying they fixed it, they fixed it, they fixed it. They never fixed it,” said Kristen Anderson, who works at the Oregon Department of Human Services.

Anderson said she worked overtime in November to save up for Christmas shopping but received no paycheck at all on Dec. 1 and was told that it had been taken to cover prior overpayments that she hadn’t known about.

Victoria Salinas, who works at the Oregon State Hospital, said she’s faced unpredictable and inconsistent deductions from her paychecks for months to make up for alleged overpayments, which she said has resulted in her being threatened with eviction when she had to prioritize food for her family.

“I get severe anxiety on whether or not I’m going to be able to keep a home for my kids,” she said.

It’s not clear how many workers remain affected at this point; SEIU didn’t provide a number. DAS initially reported that about 4,500 employees were impacted on the first day of the new system last year, and that the number had dropped to an estimated 2,151 by early March 2023, but the agency didn’t provide an updated number when contacted by KGW on Thursday.

“We have seen improvement in training and employees’ experience with the system, and we continue to make improvements in the functionality of the tool. The Department of Administrative Services is currently in litigation on this issue and that will be the extent of the comments we provide,” the agency said in a statement.

KGW also reached out to Kotek’s office for comment and will update this story if we hear back.