'Dump' pay system

Wairarapa principals dealing with thousands of dollars of botched wage payments say the Novopay payroll scheme is a disaster that should be dismantled.

Greytown Primary School principal Kevin McKay said he was tangling with up to $20,000 worth of pay discrepancies involving several of the 31 teachers at the school. He agreed with Solway Primary School principal Gail Marshall, who said the flawed Novopay system should be dumped, despite "knowing they can't do that", he said.

"Maybe they should consider removing Talent2 as the pay provider but they can't go back to the way it was. That's gone."

Mr McKay said he had faced major issues in wages since the Novopay system launched in August and today has a pair of teachers who between them have been wrongly paid about $17,000.

He said the school had made a mistake with a new teacher that had initially sparked what had become a series of flawed payments.

"The thing is when something goes wrong it just seems to get so much worse from there, and there is no one person to talk to about it," Mr McKay said.

A teacher aide at the school has not been paid at all this term, and a full-time teacher has been underpaid about $1600.

Mr McKay has spent hours each week since Novopay launched trying to unravel the discrepancies and recently advised Wairarapa MP John Hayes of the bungles. Mr Hayes had contacted the Minister of Education about the errors and reassurances were made that the problems would be resolved.

"I spoke to the ministry yesterday and they understand what the issues are. They've apparently parked themselves on the doorstep at Novopay, so we just have to wait for a resolution," he said.

Mr McKay said the school had submitted its end-of-year process to the ministry but he suspects Novopay flaws will not be remedied before the new year.

Mr McKay said the "nightmare" had kept him from his real duties as principal. "We have been topping up some wages but it hasn't really cost us in dollar terms. It's cost the time spent in class with teachers and students."

Mrs Marshall earlier said she had been dealing with more than $14,000 worth of botched wage payments and while most had been cleared, the school was yet to submit its end-of-year data and some payment flaws were still unresolved.

She was considering billing the ministry for the time she and her office manager had spent dealing with the errors, and may take up an interest-free overdraft that banks were offering for Novopay-afflicted teachers.

The overdraft offer lasts until January 15 and covers the amount the teachers' salaries should be.

Ministry of Education group manager Rebecca Elvy said more than 90 per cent of schools had returned their end-of-year data and "most school staff will receive their Christmas pay on December 21 to help ensure payments go as smoothly as possible".

She said the pay day would normally fall during Christmas week, but would be brought forward.

"We appreciate how hard school payroll administrators have been working and want to ensure they don't need to return to school during their holiday period," Ms Elvy said.

If any employee is underpaid or not paid, the school can make an advance and the ministry will reimburse it, or the ministry can make the advance directly to the staff member.

To arrange a direct advance from the ministry during the Christmas break the affected staff member can email resourcing@minedu.govt.nz with the subject line: advance or call 04 463 8383.