Milford Exempted Village School District
Milford School District Improves Workforce Productivity and Minimizes Compliance Risk with Workforce Timekeeper™
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The Milford Exempted Village School District is located 12 miles east of Cincinnati and serves the city of Milford, Miami Township, and part of Union Township in Ohio. The school district has nine schools that serve over 6,400 students and employ approximately 500 hourly and 425 salaried employees. With different categories of employees in transportation and food service, in addition to aides, custodians, extended-day caregivers, and secretaries, tracking and paying the school district’s workforce is a complex task.
Milford Schools improve workforce productivity
Before being introduced to the Kronos® Workforce Timekeeper™ solution in 2005, the Milford School District was using a paper-driven timekeeping and payroll system that proved to be time-consuming and problematic to operate. Inaccurate and unreadable timesheets, unpaid overtime, and different timesheets for different jobs at different pay scales created an inordinate workload for a small processing group on a tight budget. "Many days were spent interpreting unreadable timesheets, searching for missing timesheets, recalculating incorrect totals, and returning unsigned timesheets," Heidi Baechle, payroll specialist for Milford Schools, explains. Overtime for employees with two different jobs needed to be verified by combining two different timesheets over two different pay periods.
These processes made the turnaround time for entering hours worked into the Ohio state payroll system far too long and inefficient. "It would take up to eight days' to gather and check the information, then enter the data into the state system," Baechle says.
Milford Schools began implementing Workforce Timekeeper for the 2006-2007 school year, and the changes were dramatic. With the Workforce Connect™ interface, Milford Schools can now integrate Workforce Timekeeper with the Ohio state payroll system for a fully automated transfer of exceptions. "Once we converted to Kronos' solution, the time spent transferring data to payroll was less than one day," Baechle says.
Complete automation increases employee engagement
With diverse hourly employees, some working two or three jobs at different pay rates, Milford can use Workforce Timekeeper to accurately enforce payroll policies. The school district's Kronos solution tracks all the information needed in real time.
Increased engagement among contracted as well as substitute employees was another byproduct of using an automated timekeeping solution. "Substitutes love seeing their hours and approving their timecards online," Baechle says. The system has also freed up an overwhelming amount of time that payroll normally spent handling excessive paperwork and other manual tasks.
Kronos reporting functionality provides high-quality information
One of Milford Schools' biggest challenges in a paper-driven timekeeping system was documenting employee hours and types of work over certain time periods. With Workforce Timekeeper's reporting capabilities, Milford Schools' payroll department can look at all hours, pay rates, and types of work for a fiscal year and determine retirement benefit eligibility based on the total hours worked. The school district can also easily access prior-year information, such as hours worked, to determine whether Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) leave can be granted. "Everything is so clear-cut," Baechle says.
Kronos solutions help control labor costs and minimize compliance risk
Just like any other school district, Milford faces tight budget constraints each year. All expenses and employee payroll information must be forecast annually. "Payroll is the major expense of every school budget and we watch every penny," Baechle says.
With tight cash restraints, overtime must be monitored, and frequently alternative methods of payout must be considered. Accounting for flextime and comp time was a major issue for Milford Schools. Today with Workforce Timekeeper, Milford Schools can document overtime converted to comp time.
Workforce Timekeeper's ability to track weighted overtime also helps Milford Schools comply with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and other applicable legislation. "We can track required breaks with the employee punches," Baechle explains. "In addition, weighted overtime must be calculated when an employee works two or more different jobs, according to FLSA. The Workforce Connect interface helps us to calculate this rate, even over two pay periods." By reporting employee hours accurately, Workforce Timekeeper can also help the Milford Schools enforce compliance with the employee union contracts, including pay policies for flextime and comp time.
Visibility and control are additional critical benefits that Workforce Timekeeper offers the Milford School District. "There is no more unauthorized leave, because if there are no punches for the day, a pay code for leave must be entered," Baechle says. "Supervisors can monitor punches and determine schedules and amount of hours needed per day for each position." Milford Schools also save money through the ability to approve or decline overtime before paying it out each pay period.
Milford Schools has benefited tremendously from its Kronos solution. The system can now track all of its employees' time and payroll information automatically without having to pull timesheets from previous pay periods or use other time consuming methods. More importantly, entering employee time worked into the Ohio state payroll system was reduced to less than one day. Any information needed to determine employee eligibility for retirement benefits, paid leave, or overtime is available on a real-time basis. "I just love our Kronos solution. I have recommended the system to other school districts," Baechle says. "It works perfectly for us."