Legislature Doesn't Love UCPath

From the Sacramento Bee: The University of California would be required to pay its employees on a regular payday under a measure moving through the California Legislature in response to the university system’s ongoing payroll problems.

Senate Bill 698, sponsored by Sen. Connie Leyva, D-Chino, would mandate that employees paid monthly receive their wages no later than five days after the close of monthly payroll, while those employees paid on a frequent basis would get their wages according to a regular pay schedule.

It won unanimous approval in the state Senate and now moves to the Assembly. A UC system spokeswoman said that the university president’s office has been tracking the bill closely “and is in discussions with (Sen. Leyva) on the bill.”

“Hundreds if not thousands” of UC employees experienced missed, delayed or miscalculated paychecks as a result of their switch to the UCPath payroll system, according to Kavitha Iyengar, president of the United Auto Workers Local 2865, which represents nearly 19,000 student workers in the UC system.

UCPath is intended to unify all universities under one payroll program. The program has been rolling out university by university, with UC Berkeley the latest to be added. Other schools using UCPath include UC Santa Barbara, UCLA, UC Merced and UC Riverside.

In February, The Sacramento Bee reported that the UC system paid out more than $162,000 to make employees whole. Many of them were graduate students on a limited income. The UC system also covered any taxes incurred by the payout, and offered affected students up to $450 to assist with financial hardships incurred by late or missed payments...

Full story at https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article230945598.html

Bill at http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB698