GASTON COUNTY, N.C. — Gaston County Schools employees continue to voice concerns about payroll issues. 

What You Need To Know

  • Hundreds of Gaston County employees have been overpaid or underpaid in the past 13 months
  • According to Gaston County Schools, the issues started when the district switched to a new payroll system
  • Gaston County Schools transitioned to a new school system after the passing of a 2017 law to modernize financial systems

In January 2022, Gaston County Schools switched to Oracle Cloud operated by CherryRoad Technologies for its payroll system. 

This came after the North Carolina General Assembly passed a legislation in 2017 for a multi-phase and multi-year project to modernize and to increase efficiency of financial and human resources systems for school districts across the state.

Other school districts are also slated to modernize their payroll systems. 

According to the North Carolina Department of Instruction, the state of North Carolina is transitioning to Oracle as well. 

According to Gaston County Schools Associate Superintendent for Finance and Operations Gary Hoskins, from January to September, 1,834 people had incidents. Currently, there are 498 employees with outstanding issues. 

Last month, a longtime teacher was affected by the payroll issues. 

Alexa Gram Feller has been a Gaston County elementary school teacher for 22 years. She’s also the vice president of Gaston County's North Carolina Association of Educators, and she advocates for proper pay. 

“I thought I was in the clear until January came along, and I got this pay stub, and it was almost $500 short,” Feller said. 

She said her insurance deduction was higher last month. 

“It is a big impact, counting on that money, and that’s not being there, just to pay basic bills,” Feller said. 

Feller received a refund, but that’s not the case for everyone. 

Second-year teacher Melinda Goddard told the Board of Education last week she’s been missing pay for 13 months and is considering leaving the district.

“I’ve called, emailed and gone in person to try get this resolved, and I’ve been more than patient. How do you expect teachers to stay, especially new ones?” Goddard said. 

Hoskins told board members staff is working diligently to solve ongoing issues and improve communication with affected employees.

“As we get fewer and fewer [issues], we are able to manage them better. We try to communicate better. I’m not going to tell you that we are perfect in our communication, because we are trying to resolve issues as quickly as we can, but we are trying to do a better job than we did last year at communication,” Hoskins said. 

Gaston County School board member A.M. Stephens III and other school board members want faster solutions. 

“Please let's find some folks to get into that office, to learn the systems so they can communicate with these folks so they know what’s going on,” Stephens said.

Feller worries about the ripple effect if the issue is not solved soon. 

"Gaston County prides itself on highly qualified teachers and staff members that they are going to end up losing teachers, losing staff members,” Feller said. 

Spectrum News 1 reached out to CherryRoad Technologies but has not heard back from the company. 

On top of the payroll issues, the W-2s of several employees have incorrect information, including the wrong address for their employer. 

Feller worries about having to ask for a tax extension.

According to the district, it’s working with ADP, the company preparing the W-2s to make the forms available online. The district also said it’s filing approximately 30 forms to correct the original W-2 forms.