Notes from a Centralized Office: A Renewed Interest in ERP Has School Administrators Reconsidering the Vast Business Management Systems They Abandoned a Few Short Years Ago

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Management Systems; Employees; Computers; School Districts; Information Technology; Computer Networks; Human Resources; Administrators; Records (Forms); Wages; Computer Centers; Data Processing

California; Georgia

1053-6728

It used to be much easier to get paid by the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD). A lot easier, that is, if you didn't work there. Saddled with an antiquated computer system and manual, repetitive data entry of time cards, officials at California's second-largest school district discovered the payroll department was mistakenly issuing $1 million a year in paychecks to former and retired employees. And the human resources department was in no shape to catch such a staggering oversight because employees were relying on a 30-year-old, mainframe-style computer system not compatible with other school departments--and one that required staff to regularly re-input information for the district's 20,000 employees. Like other school systems across the nation plagued by overburdened and inadequate information technology, San Diego embarked on a complete overhaul of its computer network and data center. In 2002, officials there purchased a $26 million business management system, known as enterprise resource planning, or ERP, that handles all of the finance, HR, and payroll demands of the district's $1.1 billion-a-year operation. Today, the SDUSD boasts a successful enterprise-wide system run by Oracle/PeopleSoft software that has reformed every aspect of its operations, but unlike other school systems across the nation that have attempted--and failed at--such projects, in San Diego, ERP works.

ERIC

2008

EJ788844