Hey SFUSD: Cancel the EmPower Contract!

I am writing to you to demand that you cancel the SFUSD EmPower Contract.
San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) has wasted 16.5 million of taxpayer dollars in exchange for a payroll disaster. The original EmPower contract was for $9.5 million, but continual failures and training gaps raised the contract price to $13.7 million by the end of 2021.  

After over $13 million spent and over 2 years, SFUSD has completely botched the roll out of the Empower transition. The January 2022 launch and transition have been catastrophic for our educators and our students alike. Thousands of educators have had lost wages, cancelled benefits, errors in tax withholdings and retirement contributions. Educators, support staff, and administrators are wasting countless hours filling out and reviewing timesheets, identifying errors, submitting Help Tickets, reaching out for support, and going to 555 Franklin for answers.

We are 9 months into EmPower and the glitches continue.  Open Help Tickets are at 14,871 (8,539 are payroll related; 6,332 are not payroll related).  2,047 Help Tickets have been open for over 90 days. This must end NOW!

Our Demands:
Cancel EmPower: ensure that public money—meant for schools and students—is not wasted on private corporations.
Hold SFUSD administrators accountable for EmPower crisis: this disaster has led to educator and student services instability. This cycle of disruption must end.
Restore a fully-staffed district payroll and HR department: invest in stable schools and students instead of austerity measures that hurt schools, students, and educators. We need real, trained humans monitoring our payroll and benefits, not automated systems which don't function.

Thank you so much for continuing to support rank-and-file SFUSD educators!

Solidarity forever!