BOARD MEETING DATE: November 6, 2009
AGENDA NO. 12

PROPOSAL:

Appropriate Funds for Purchase and Implementation of PeopleSoft Enterprise Payroll (ePay) 

SYNOPSIS:

This action is to appropriate funding from the Undesignated Fund Balance to the FY 2009-10 District General Budget for the purchase and implementation of the ePay module and training associated with PeopleSoft Payroll and Employee Benefits administration. The ePay program works with AQMD’s existing PeopleSoft software allowing AQMD to further automate and streamline its payroll/employee benefits function by providing employees the ability to electronically update direct deposit information, view paychecks, and change deductions and tax withholding information.

COMMITTEE:

Administrative, October 9, 2009. Less than a quorum was present during the discussion of this item; the Chairman communicated his concurrence and recommendation that this item be forwarded for Board consideration with no approval or disapproval recommendation from the Committee. 

RECOMMENDED ACTIONS:

Appropriate $49,600 from the Undesignated Fund Balance to the FY 2009-10 Budget, District General, to the following Major Objects: $36,100 Services and Supplies; $13,500 Capital Outlays.
 

Barry R. Wallerstein, D.Env.
Executive Officer

Background

AQMD, in preparation for Y2K, implemented its current financial and payroll systems (PeopleSoft) in 1999. As part of that implementation, AQMD went from paper time cards to an electronic system that improved accuracy and supported our cost allocation (work program) tracking system. Staff has been working on several improvements to the 10-year old time card system which will further improve performance and reduce future cost.  

Proposal

AQMD, in its continued efforts to further streamline operations has identified several areas associated with its payroll function that, through further automation, will reduce staff time, paper usage and records storage.

One of those improvements is the implementation of electronic pay advices which will allow employees to view their bi-weekly pay advices on-line and thus do away with printed pay advices. Payroll will no longer have to print, sort and stuff pay advices for more than 800 employees, reproduce advices when lost by employees (this currently requires rerunning a past pay period’s print program cycle for each pay advice requested) or coordinate delivery of the pay advices to the various departments throughout the agency. The estimated annual cost savings for payroll, department secretaries, paper and envelopes is approximately $48,000 annually. In addition, the ePay program will allow employees to review, add, update and delete their personal information. This would include the ability to view their direct deposit information and make necessary changes; make changes to their voluntary deductions; request duplicate W-2s to be sent either to their work location or home address; and allow employees to update tax withholding data.

Staff is also including in this request funding for new/enhanced training on its PeopleSoft Payroll and Employee Benefits programs. Payroll staff has not received program specific training on this PeopleSoft module since its implementation in 1999 and the new staff in Human Resources, which handle: employee records administration; personnel transactions required for payroll; benefits enrollment and billing; and position control, have received limited on-the-job training. Information Management has arranged for the development of specific end-to-end training to be provided at AQMD at a substantial discount compared to what is offered by PeopleSoft offsite. Training will allow staff to identify additional performance improvements and efficiencies.

Resource Impacts

The research and cost analysis associated with this request was not available during the budget development process. Therefore funding for these enhancements was not included in the FY 2009-10 Budget. Staff is requesting an appropriation from the Undesignated Fund Balance to implement the recommendations with the understanding that there will be ongoing annual savings associated with these improvements.