Getting paid once a month is not the easiest way to live as a college student. Luckily, Longwood is trying to work toward a more unified payroll system. This will help students get paid more often throughout the month, rather than waiting four weeks for a check.
However, this does not change wages for Longwood employees. It will only change the time employees receive their checks. Longwood University does not have a singular payroll system for student and faculty employees; they are not all paid on the same cycle, according to Vice President for Administration and Finance, Ken Copeland.
“The Commonwealth of Virginia processes and cuts Longwood University’s checks,” said Copeland. This, in turn, makes it easier on the university by eliminating one less group of employees to pay monthly as well as adding additional work to current employees’ days. “We also upload payroll [information] to the state to get paychecks cut for students,” said Copeland. “Some schools process their own payroll and write their own checks.” Longwood could do this, but the process to switch over would be extremely long because the university pays so many different people.
Right now, the Banner Accounting system the financial office uses to upload payroll information to the Commonwealth has fundamental IT changes that must occur. There is a process in which the payroll office has to get the time cards from student laborers by a certain time to be able to change the payroll from monthly to semi-monthly because most full time employees are already semi-monthly. “It would make it easier on us in the payroll office as well, but the university has numerous other projects happening, such as French Hall and the new Student Union, that keep us from moving forward,” said Copeland. “We acknowledge that some students may go five weeks without being paid, and that is a burden that is not lost on us. We just need to take care of some IT issues first,” said Copeland. “My hope is that we can have this in play when the new academic year comes in fall 2014. It’s something that needs to happen.”
This would take a collaborative effort between Longwood’s financial operations and IT to make sure that all of the integration is done properly before we go live with it.
Student Librarian Assistant Tom Lanigan said that he is grateful for his job and earning the extra money but he, along with many other students, agree that a bi-weekly payroll would be a better form of payment. “We will continue to have students working here at Longwood,” said Copeland. “It just needs more frequency where we would pay all of our employees on the same calendar.”
The students who work in Dorill Dining Hall, Chick-fil-A, Moe’s, Java City or Einstein Bros. Bagels will be affected by this change, even though they are also ARAMARK employees. “I definitely think it would be better if it was weekly or bi-weekly, rather than waiting a month,” said ARAMARK employee Stephanie Mendoza. “I hate waiting every month for my paycheck to come in on the 20th. I think it would be better for managing my money if it was more unified and spread out through the month.” This payroll schedule is not realistic to a college student. It is too spread out, and according to the students, it needs to change so they can manage their money better.
According to Copeland, “It’s something that should have happened already, but unfortunately there’s always more projects than time allows us to have; but we haven’t let this fall off the list.”
