NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) – Teachers, firefighters and police officers are among the Metro Nashville employees who have been reaching out to WSMV for months saying they were not getting the right paycheck.
Nashville leaders pushed for answers trying to fix the problem at a special called meeting on Tuesday evening after WSMV first reported about the issue last week.
Metro Council members said they’re frustrated finance and HR leaders haven’t been able to explain why and how this problem happened that’s impacted hundreds of Metro employees since January.
Union reports widespread issues
Jessica Stewart, president of SEIU Local 205, has been getting emails since January from union members who weren’t getting paid correctly because of the city’s new payroll system.
Stewart said they’ve had hundreds of union members dealing with issues and she’s concerned there might be even more problems, but people aren’t looking close enough at their paychecks to find and report them.
“To miss a paycheck can be catastrophic,” Stewart said. “People expect to get paid on time. They have to show up to work on time. They have to do their job correctly. They have a right to expect to be paid properly and on time. That is just not happening right now for everyone.”
The issue first started with Metro Schools support staff but quickly spread to all other Metro departments where the union represents workers, including Metro General Services, Metro Action Commission and Metro Development and Housing Authority.
“People are getting overpaid. People are getting underpaid. People are not getting paid at all. Their overtime is not being calculated correctly,” Stewart said. “It’s pretty much anything having to do with payroll.”
Stewart said the problems have hit low-wage employees particularly hard. They’ve received several complaints from members who are facing late fees and charges for overdrawn accounts because their paycheck was not delivered on time.
City switches to Oracle Cloud system
Metro leaders said the problems are connected to an announcement from December 2024, with the city switching over to a new AI-powered system from Oracle. The change was designed to “keep pace with the area’s rapid growth,” according to a press release announcing the change.
Around 2% of Metro employees have been dealing with problems since it was implemented in January, Metro Finance leaders said, and staff has been working around the clock to fix issues with the system.
On Friday, Mayor Freddie O’Connell said Metro technology staff has been working with Oracle to fix the issues.
“We made a big switch that had a lot of impact within Oracle to Oracle Cloud,” O’Connell said. “For Metro that covers a lot of HR and payroll issues. We have been working tirelessly with the vendor. Metro ITS is leading that effort in conjunction with Metro HR and Finance.”
Metro Finance leaders said they’re not using AI to directly process payroll, even if it’s incorporated in the new software.
Council demands answers at special meeting
A special joint committee meeting was held on Tuesday giving council members an opportunity to hear directly from Finance Director Jenneen Reed about the issues.
Reed said people deserve to be paid fully and on time, and they are “deeply sorry” about the problems that have “overwhelmed” the department.
More than 4,200 “interim paychecks” have been issued since the new system was introduced, meaning there was a problem with a normal paycheck and the city had to separately ensure someone got the money they earned.
“I know an apology or a sorry doesn’t ring up at the cash register,” Council Member Tasha Ellis said to Metro employees who gathered at the special meeting.
Reed told council members Metro Finance was forced to start using the new system on January 1 because its old system was at end of life at the end of 2025. Delaying the transition would’ve forced the city to manually track all timecards and payroll for the first three months of the year.
The Oracle system was designed to streamline and combine several systems used to serve the more than 32,000 Metro employees and 10,000 pensioners, but vendors told Metro ITS that their systems were just as complex as a large multi-national corporation.
Despite multiple test scenarios and large tests across departments, Reed said there is no way to know what issues there might be with a computer system until it’s put into action.
“Some issues only surface when you go live with real employee data, real payroll cycles and real ERP data, or accounting data. When those issues have emerged, we have worked to identify and correct them.”
Reed said Metro is expecting there to be even more problems over the coming months when the system is forced to do things, like end of budget year salary increases, for the very first time. As much as they’re working to prevent problems, she could only commit to updating community leaders again on their progress in May.
Council Member Courtney Johnston said she’s heard from countless people who are still not getting the correct paycheck. She’s especially concerned for retirees who are not good at using technology and haven’t been able to get in contact with Metro leaders to correct issues.
“I’m talking about the thousands of people that have incorrect checks, that still can’t get anybody on the phone, their withholding is wrong, they’re looking at having to pay back a massive amount of money at the end of the year because of the withholding being wrong. Nobody is answering the phones, nobody is answering emails,” Johnston said.
Stewart said her union members are upset after months of showing up to work on time and not getting the right paycheck from Metro. They’ve also reported problems with how their vacation time and other benefits are calculated.
“Just this general feeling of frustration,” Stewart said. “I truly believe they are trying to fix it, but it’s not happening quickly.”
Retired officer waits months for pension
Retired Metro Police officer Jamell Randall reached out to WSMV when bills for his mortgage and daughter’s college tuition started to pile up after waiting months for a pension payment.
“I waited around for the payment and it never happened,” Randall said. “Every time I called or reached out to someone, I just got the runaround. Here it is going on four months later after retirement and I haven’t seen my drop money or a retirement check.”
Randall said the city was having problems transferring his information to the new system. The delay forced Randall to drain his emergency fund and put his post-retirement business plans on hold.
The situation also prevented him from hiring additional care for his mother before she died.
Although Randall was able to get a check after WSMV’s original story on the issue, he said the payroll problems have affected friends of his that work across Metro departments and he feels bad for them with rising costs.
“I feel like it’s a slap in the face,” Randall said. “They don’t care about the older employees or the employees who served this community. I’ve served through floods, riots, shootings.”
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