The University of Oregon’s original estimate of how many of its graduate employees it failed to pay last October has doubled from 350 to 700 since the mistake was first announced, according to an internal university report.

The report reviews the October 2019 incident in which the university failed to pay a significant number of its 1,500 GEs. Though the university originally said that it had not paid only 350 GEs, the report states that the actual figure is double that, at 700.

• UO failed to pay 700, and not 350, of its GEs on time. That means almost half of UO’s 1,500 GEs did not receive their monthly paychecks on time.

• UO missed its stated deadline of when it would pay GEs by two days.
• Only one employee is tasked with entering GE paperwork data into the payroll system — and does so manually.
• UO is considering various strategies to fix its clogged payroll system, including automating its data-entry system, working to complete GE reappointment paperwork in the spring and having more payroll employees processing paperwork.

And though the university originally told the Emerald that it expected to pay all GEs by Oct. 8, the report states that the school missed this deadline by two days.

Related, from October: “About 350 GEs have not been paid their Sept. paychecks on time”

“Last fall, all GE’s who had completed paperwork were paid by the Oct. 8 deadline. Late paperwork held up the processing of a handful of payments,” said Kay Jarvis, a university spokesperson, in an emailed statement.

According to Jarvis, the university originally announced the estimate that 350 people had been impacted because, by the time the Emerald asked, only 350 individuals remained to be paid.

UO employs about 1,500 GEs, graduate students who teach, research and work in administration in exchange for tuition and fee waivers. Those who didn’t receive their monthly paycheck — for many, the first paycheck of the school year or their first from the university — could not pay their rent or other monthly expenses on time, said GEs in interviews with the Emerald in October.

The report also suggested places for improvement regarding how the university pays GEs, the hiring and onboarding process and how long the payroll office takes to process employment paperwork.

The paperwork process begins in the department where the GE works and ends in the payroll department.

The Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation, the labor union representing GEs at UO, said that it first learned about the differing numbers when it received the report near the end of December. When it first learned of missing October paychecks from GEs, the union sent out a survey to approximate the number of affected GEs and arrived at about the same number as the university.

“We tried to reach out to as many people as possible. It was also the beginning of the year,” GTFF President Ellen Gillooly-Kress said. “But that was our effort to try and figure out the extent of the problem.”

The university uses electronic payroll request forms to manage temporary and current positions in the payroll system, according to the UO Business Affairs webpage. The payroll office normally takes six days to process, review and send ePRFs to the payroll department, the report states.

A graduate student coordinator compiles hiring paperwork and sends them to the payroll department, which matches them with completed ePRF forms and enters it into the system. But just a single payroll employee enters this data — and does so manually.

“Our position is, they need to get paid and as quickly as possible, and I know that there are limits, as they outlined in the document, to the human labor that’s involved with manually entering things,” Gillooly-Kress said. “I think that was their best-faith effort to get that done.”

The payroll department also waits until September to enter hiring paperwork into the system, after the university has hired new GEs and reappointed returning GEs. The main hurdles the payroll department faces include an inefficient paperwork process and a lack of process for tracking late documents, according to the report.

“The group identified several improvements that can be made in the communication, outreach, and payroll processes, and are working to implement them prior to the next GE hiring cycle,” Jarvis wrote in the university’s statement.

The report also briefly outlined some potential improvements for streamlining the payroll process, including automating some payroll tasks, processing documents earlier in the year and having more employees input paperwork data.
“There’s not a very specific answer to, ‘Why so many people?’” Gillooly-Kress said.

Editor’s note: This story was updated Tuesday afternoon to include a statement the university provided after publication, though the university did not provide comment in the four days provided prior to publication. This story was also updated to correct the name of the Business Affairs office. Payroll runs through Business Affairs at the university, not Human Resources.