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, Ohio, and serves the city of Milford, Miami Township, and part of Union Township. The school district has nine schools that serve more than 6,200 students and employ approximately 400 hourly and 425 salaried employees. With different categories of employees — secretaries, teachers’ aides, food service staff, custodians, extended-day caregivers, and substitutes — tracking and paying the school district’s workforce is a complex task.
Payroll processing sees marked productivity improvements
The school district had been using a time-consuming and unwieldy paper-driven timekeeping and payroll system. 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,” explains Heidi Baechle, the district’s payroll specialist. Overtime for employees with two different jobs needed to be verified by combining two timesheets over two pay periods.
These processes created a long and inefficient turnaround time for entering hours worked into the Ohio state payroll system. “It would take up to eight days to gather and check the information and then enter the data into the state system,” Baechle says.
Milford School District saw dramatic changes after implementing the Kronos Workforce Timekeeper application, which tracks employee information in real time. Hourly employees, including substitutes, review and approve their hours at PCs using Kronos self-service tools. “Substitutes like seeing their hours and approving their timecards online,” notes Baechle.
After hours are approved, the Workforce Connect interface integrates Workforce Timekeeper with the Ohio state payroll system for a fully automated transfer of exceptions. “Once we converted to the Kronos solution, the time spent transferring data to payroll was reduced to less than one day,” she adds, freeing up payroll staff for other responsibilities.
Reporting functionality provides high-quality information
One of the school district’s biggest challenges with a paper-driven timekeeping system was documenting employee hours and types of work over certain time periods. With Workforce Timekeeper’s reporting capabilities, the Milford School District 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 and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) leave can be granted. “Everything is so clear-cut,” Baechle says.
Solution helps control labor costs and minimize compliance risk
During a recent school year, Milford School District was placed on fiscal caution by the Ohio state auditor because of low funding. Following a year of monthly performance audits, Baechle notes the final state auditor report stated, “Milford uses a biometric time clock system (Kronos) to track all classified staff time and attendance. Using Kronos ensures the district pays employees only for the time they have worked. In addition, the district uses the data generated by Kronos to ensure that payroll is submitted, processed, and paid accurately.” The following year Milford passed a school levy and the district was removed from fiscal caution status.
Like all school districts, Milford faces tight budget constraints. “Payroll is the major expense of every school budget and we watch overtime carefully,” says Baechle, adding that alternative methods of payout must be considered. Accounting for flextime and comp time was a major issue before. “Kronos tracks and documents flextime as well as overtime that is converted to comp time, so this is a lot more accurate now and overtime expenditures are reduced,” she explains. By reporting employee hours accurately, Workforce Timekeeper also helps the district enforce compliance with employee union contracts, including pay policies for flextime and comp time.
Ensuring fair labor standards compliance
Workforce Timekeeper’s ability to track weighted overtime ensures that Milford complies with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and other applicable legislation. “We can track required breaks with employee punches,” Baechle says. “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 calculate this rate, even over two pay periods.”
Prior to the implementation of Kronos time clocks, aides often “volunteered” their time, staying after school to assist their teachers. This “volunteer time” created a potential liability for the school district. Now, with aides required to punch in and out, the Kronos solution not only ensures that employees are paid accurately and the district is in compliance with FLSA, but also gives supervisors valuable workforce information to support adjusting hours for specific employees. Baechle calls Kronos her “insurance plan” in being confident that the district is totally compliant in paying hourly employees accurately.
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,” notes Baechle. “Supervisors can monitor punches and determine schedules and number of hours needed per day for each position.” The district also saves money through its ability to approve or decline overtime before paying it out each pay period.
“I just love our Kronos solution and have recommended the system to other school districts,” Baechle adds. “It works perfectly for us and I want other school districts to know that.”
Milford School District Summary
PROJECT BENEFITS
• Improved productivity of school district payroll department
• Compliance with payroll policies and regulations such as the Fair Labor Standards Act and Family and Medical Leave Act
• Controlled labor costs by providing visibility and control over overtime and leave
Category: School district
Employees: 400 hourly, 425 salaried
Products: Workforce Timekeeper™
Workforce Connect™
Kronos 4500™ biometric terminal
“Once we converted to the Kronos solution, the time spent transferring data to payroll was reduced to less than one day.” — Heidi Baechle, Payroll Specialist
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