Mandy Smith HUNDREDS of Hawke's Bay teachers and support staff have either gone without wages this year or been underpaid because of major blunders with a national payroll system. Datacom provides payroll services to more than 80,000 New Zealand teachers under its contract with the Education Ministry. Hawke's Bay principals say several payrollrounds this year have been filled with errors, and schools have even had to dip into their own funds to cover wages for short-changed staff. Hastings Boys' High School principal Rob Sturch said about four staff members had been wrongly paid at his school each week since the start of the school year, and most were support staff. "Generally they're underpaid, but sometimes it's their whole salary missing for two weeks," he said. Mr Sturch himself wasn't paid at all this week. "I can get through but for some teachers, especially the young ones with student loans, it's hard." Clive School principal Brian Eales said about 80 per cent of Hawke's Bay primary schools had experienced payroll problems in the past year. Education Ministry spokesman Ian Butler said 99 per cent of all teachers had been paid properly in the first pay round in February. But with 65,000 changes made to the system at the start of this year, "it's not unusual to have the odd mistake". Mr Butler said he was unaware of ongoing payroll issues. , and said he could not comment on staffing issues at Datacom. Datacom referred all enquiries back to the Ministry.
