Millions of Dollars Later, U. of Wisconsin Still Lacks New Payroll Software

More than three years and $36-million dollars have not been enough to fix the University of Wisconsin system’s payroll computer program.

According to the Associated Press, a system budget official said the project, originally budgeted to cost $1.6-million and be finished by last fall, will now cost at least $12-million.

In February the university had accepted that the budget would need to be increased to $8-million, and the deadline was pushed back until summer. This is the second attempt at fixing the outdated system, after $28.4-million was spent through 2006.

The original system was developed in 1975, written in a computer language that is no longer used. With budget cuts, university employees will have 16 days of furloughs over the next two years. The college’s president said he doubted the old system would be able to track that information.

“The project requires much more extensive planning and analysis than we originally predicted, and we are committed to a very thorough planning process,” a university spokesman, David Giroux, told the Associated Press. “We did not have the full picture of how complex this project would be.”

This time PeopleSoft is leading the project to fix the payroll system. The same company gave North Dakota’s public colleges some difficulty in updating a course-registration system in 2006, and the University of Minnesota used PeopleSoft for a $45.7-million upgrade of its financial system in the same year. —Marc Beja