Working For Free Once Again: At San Antonio College Adjunct Paychecks Go Unissued

At least 14 adjunct faculty members at San Antonio College did not receive a paycheck on payday in February.

District officials don’t have any idea how many others were affected.

Reportedly, problems include adjunct faculty at this college not receiving checks, being underpaid, overpaid or unable to locate a check at all. February 12th was supposed to be the issue date of the first adjunct faculty paycheck of the Spring semester. This is also the first adjunct faculty check run produced solely through the new Banner HR system that is supposed to consolidate all payroll and human resource functions.

Wednesday, President Robert Zeigler confirmed that 14 people didn’t get paid on February 12th, and that the college needed to re-evaluate its current payroll system and see what they need to do to make sure faculty gets paid on time. Some of it, he said, was because paperwork was not processed yet. At this point, Zeigler said he is trying not to look at who to blame but how to fix this problem. Part of the problems came from a change in how adjunct instructors are paid.

Checks previously were sent to the office of Dean Ruben Flores in Room 230 of Fletcher Administration Center. Flores, dean of evening, weekend and distance education, oversees employment of adjunct faculty. Now checks are being sent to the business office in Room 201 of Fletcher and can be picked up only by unit assistants or a designated faculty representative from each department. The business office is not releasing checks to individual adjuncts.

New evolving procedures require the individual departments to deliver adjunct faculty checks picked up from the business office to Flores’ office for distribution.
The reason checks have been sent to his office was because it is open on Saturdays and later in the evening, making it convenient for lecturers who may work elsewhere during normal business hours.

Luis Sevilla, administrative secretary in Flores’ office, sent an e-mail Monday describing the adjuncts’ first payday as a “headache for everyone.” Sevilla said there was also an instance of a professor’s check being sent to the wrong college.

One lecturer teaching digital design at Northwest Vista College was paid from funds from the digital design program here.

Zeigler said Tuesday morning that he was aware of three adjunct faculty members who hadn’t received pay, and after looking into it, he said it looks as though the problem was at the college level. He said he knew of one adjunct instructor who received a supplemental check Wednesday and another who was working with human resources to solve the problem. He said in those instances, some deadlines weren’t met and would account for the delay in pay.

In a telephone interview Thursday, Flores said payroll reports were run on January 25th using the old Passport system, and if the departments did not notify the evening, weekend and distance education office of any changes in the wage documents, that could have affected the check amount. He said that his department checks to make sure faculty members are indeed teaching those courses and the amount of pay is correct. If for instance, a section is canceled, that would affect the amount of pay and would need to be modified.

Sevilla said that he didn’t have an exact number of adjunct faculty members who hadn’t received a paycheck but that it was no more than 10 individuals.
There were more lecturers or regular faculty who were experiencing other issues such as being underpaid or overpaid.

Zeigler said that he was not sure what the problem was with faculty being underpaid, but it may have to do with overloads or teachers being assigned extra hours.
Flores said the business office is reissuing checks for those overpaid. If those overpaid have already cashed their check, Zeigler said, they would have to pay that back to the district possibly by a reduction in their next paycheck.

David Mrizek, vice president of college services, said he had gotten a call from two adjunct faculty members asking for their Banner ID numbers.
The new Banner system uses these instead of Social Security numbers. Mrizek said he looked in the Banner system and could not find their numbers. At that point, he directed them to human resources.

Flores said he does not have access to BannerHR so he has been calling human resources to make sure they were picked up by the new system. He said there were incidents of some faculty not being transferred from Passport to BannerHR.

Flores said, “I’ve been here for 25 years and I’ve never been through something like this.”

Chancellor Bruce Leslie said he was unaware that numbers of adjunct faculty has not been paid.

Linda Boyer-Owens, associate vice chancellor of human resources, said that this type of situation is typical for the start of the beginning of the semester.
She said that if adjunct professors have not received a supplemental paycheck this week, then they should go through their departments and they would alert human resources.

Boyer-Owens said that part of the problem is because of the current paper-intensive process with approvals and departments submitting adjunct pay information.
She was unaware of the incident in which an adjunct faculty member’s check went to Northwest Vista College. She said that she knew of an incident in which a college staff employee’s check was sent there.

She confirmed that much of the confusion is because of “late-breaking” changes in the faculty’s schedule. Any time a class section is canceled or they pick up another section, this affects their check because adjuncts are paid by a flat amount per class. Boyer-Owens said that when the student component of Banner is introduced, it will make the system smoother because departments can enter and modify payroll information online that will immediately be updated.

Payroll manager Marvel Bailey could not comment on the number of supplemental checks that were printed because she said she was in the middle of payroll for next week’s paychecks.

The February 12th check was the first paycheck to reflect a much-debated two percent base pay increase approved December 15th by the board of trustees.