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School admin staff resigning over Novopay

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School staff resign over Novopay

3News NZ

School admin staff are resigning due to stress over the Novopay pay system as secondary teachers prepare to take legal action.

A survey of 1155 school principals shows 23 staff have resigned since the error-prone pay system was introduced, while many more are considering following them, Principals Federation president Philip Harding says.

"This is a distressing finding," Mr Harding said.

"We can reasonably assume that our survey respondents are representative of all schools. We can therefore extrapolate from the data that there could be as many as 50 resignations across the country and many more at breaking point."

The survey also showed the proportion of schools experiencing issues had gone up from 86 percent in October to 96 percent.

Other results for the 1155 respondents showed 25,585 staff were incorrectly paid in the last pay period, and 55.5 percent of schools paid staff from their own school funds, Mr Harding said.

"We cannot stand by and watch schools lose highly valuable staff through the stress of trying to make a completely dysfunctional Novopay system behave rationally."

The Post Primary Teachers Association announced on Tuesday it would allow its 18,000 members take legal action for those left hurt, humiliated or out of pocket by ongoing payroll problems.

"Members' patience and goodwill has all but run out. Continued Novopay errors mean schools, students, principals and administration staff are at the end of their tether," PPTA president Angela Roberts said.

The PPTA said discussions were under way with lawyers.

Talent2, the company that supplies Novopay, released the first of three software upgrades last weekend, with others to follow in March and April.

A ministerial inquiry is investigating all aspects of the error-ridden system, which has caused strife since it was rolled out in August.

NZN

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Comments

9/03/2013 9:03:12 p.m.

Eion Tought wrote:

NOVOPAY - Has anybody considered that this whole thing is a jack-up designed to get teachers to leave so the Govt can reduce the payroll and close schools, as the attempted earlier? We know the government is broke and really scraping for money what with the events that have taken place over the last 3-4 years. Would you keep on an outfit as useless as this Novopay outfit? I'm damn sure I wouldn't!! Eion

4/03/2013 8:57:42 a.m.

Susan wrote:

I am Finance Administrator at a large primary school and have been here for many years. I used to enjoy my job and the environment I worked in, but the stresses this has caused amongst our staff, staff relationships and morale are unacceptable. The hours and hours I have put in since the introduction of Novopay are unbelievable and just keep continuing with no ending in sight. I am one of the many who are at breaking point.

3/03/2013 8:51:02 p.m.

katubaldy wrote:

Can't remember a time when the NZ education system was besieged by its own govt so badly and the sickening effects its having on our educators and their support staff, the parents and students....How is it within the labour laws of NZ that a company can go without effectively paying hard earning kiwi professionals for so long and across the board like this...Its getting to look and sound like something from a struggling third world country....Pathetic and beyond any reasonable words.....get it together Joe Key this is a first grade farce and your govt are fully responsible for it...get the Aussies out and get back to Datacom, it sucks the way it is...

3/03/2013 7:40:49 p.m.

Carolyn wrote:

I am responsible for Finance, Human Resources and Property in a secondary school. I have been in this role for 12 years. Since Novopay was introduced I have worked hundreds of hours overtime for no pay because our school can't afford to pay me. The stress is unbelievable. I stay because I used to enjoy my job and I hope that things will get better but the impact on my health and my family has been huge.

27/02/2013 6:13:45 p.m.

jan.. wrote:

Sack the pay clerk and sue the government for the legal fees for wasting the teacher’s time and putting them in an unhealthy situation. This National Government are out of proportion and not doing their job accordingly to the law system but taken it under the carpet double dealing and buying time to suit themselves, this government doesn’t care less about the teacher’s and their time spending teaching our children. The teacher’s living situation must be very depressing waiting for their salary so they can feed their families, what cowardly this idiot moron of this government turned out to be, resign from their posts is what the people of New Zealand preferred.

27/02/2013 3:44:20 p.m.

R tait wrote:

Please put. All MP's salaries on the Nevapay system. The National led Government should resign now. They have failed in many regards and keep blundering. They do not deserve the country's confidence. Robert of Opawa.

27/02/2013 2:57:49 p.m.

Denese wrote:

Why are we using an Australian company when we have a perfect system set up by PayShop.Payshop manage 8 DHB's & 35,000 healthcare workers among others. But no this government wants to let another country enjoy us putting money into their economy and not looking after our economy. John Key makes a statement on tv that he wants to have jobs for all New Zealanders, not the way to go about it.Then they want to use more tax payers money by throwing more money at Novopay.

27/02/2013 1:35:31 p.m.

Mike and Elly Maynard wrote:

We think it ludicrous that this payroll system is being controlled from Australia. What on earth is possessing the Education Minister and we agree she should go!!! Certain there are other organisations more than capable of handling this payroll debacle in NZ!

27/02/2013 1:08:07 p.m.

James wrote:

Would have been a LOT CHEAPER to employ a Wage Clerk for each School, [and would create some part-time employment] and go back to the "Old days ways" Would take years to burn up these wasted $$$ millions...Why do we have to have computors to do everything... They are only as good as the "clown" programming them !!! Cheers, James.

27/02/2013 12:27:51 p.m.

John wrote:

This system was introduced despite government ministers knowing it was faulty ahead of time. This was always going to be a disaster and it's time the Minister of Education was sacked and both her and the Novopay system replaced with something effective. As for the comments of previous corespondent AJ - playing with numbers won't support your narrow-minded perspective or the govt, when the only number that's really relevant is 96% of schools experiencing ongoing problems! Amazing ineptitude!