NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — They've been on the job for weeks, but dozens of Metro Nashville Public School teachers say they've not yet been paid.
MNPS officials said they are working as fast as possible to fix the situation, and are aware of the problem. They added they are working to process new hires and transfer teachers. Prior to the school year's start, MNPS had 250 vacancies in the classroom.
By the district's calculation, 80 employees are stuck somewhere in the payment process.
"Our human resources team has been working nights and weekends to process the new hire and transfer paperwork for teachers to ensure they are being paid for their work," MNPS spokesperson Sean Braisted said. "We deeply regret any delays in payment for teachers or staff, but all employees will be paid for the work they performed."
The Metro Nashville Education Association — the local teacher's union — said it hoped everything can be sorted out soon.
"It is a huge financial hardship, especially for our brand-new teachers who, you know, maybe graduated in the spring have had some sort of filler job over the summer, coming in getting a real paycheck, and then missing two paychecks at the first of the year," said Michele Sheriff, MNEA President.
Sheriff says MNEA has received emails daily from teachers asking about their paychecks.
"We have communicated with the MNEA and Principals that staff who were not processed to receive paychecks through the normal process on Friday, they would be processed over the weekend and would receive paper paychecks or direct deposits on Tuesday (8/23/22). 201 employees were successfully paid either via checks that were delivered yesterday to schools or direct deposit.
There are 43 new hires and rehires that are still in process, along with 8 who had errors when submitted for payroll processing, and we have been working with Metro Finance to get another set of interim payroll checks cut and delivered this Friday. We have been working to notify those staff and/or their principals of the issue.
29 staff have been identified as having cleared background checks and started working, but some form of documentation is missing to complete the onboarding process. Hiring managers are working to connect with those individuals to complete their paperwork and ensure they are paid for the work they’ve performed as quickly as possible.
We know that there are also some employees who transferred from one position to another with a higher pay classification. If they received paychecks with their previous job’s rate, they will receive the difference in future paychecks."
— Sean Braisted, spokesperson for Metro Nashville Public Schools
