CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia University is trying to straighten out a glitch that caused thousands of university employees to miss out on paychecks on Black Friday.
The problem affected 11,507 of 15,021 accounts that should have received payroll deposits, said university spokesman John Bolt.
The university released a statement earlier today from Rob Alsop, WVU’s vice president for strategic initiatives.
“We have identified the problem, and the state and University are working to correct it. We are reaching out to the banks to get the issues resolved as quickly as possible and I will keep you as informed as more information becomes available,” Alsop said in the first statement from the university.
At the time, he said, university and state officials were still trying to make deposits no later than today. But he said deposits would take place no later than Monday.
“We understand that a Monday deposit may cause a hardship for some of our employees,” Alsop stated.
A later update said that, despite best efforts, deposits couldn’t take place today and will have to wait until Monday.
“The University has worked diligently with both the state Treasurer and Auditor and representatives from the wvOASIS team on this issue,” Alsop stated in the update.
“The University has resubmitted the appropriate payroll information for processing, and the resubmitted information has already been forwarded by the state Treasurer to the appropriate financial institution for processing. However, given federal-based deadlines, payroll deposits will occur on Monday, Nov. 27. We do not anticipate that there will be any additional deposits to accounts prior to Monday.”
University officials also have been working with the state Treasurer and banking institutions to try to prevent employees from being hit with any overdraft charges resulting from the problem, Alsop stated.
“As a University, we are committed to helping our employees with any such situation,” he stated.
WVU is trying to prevent any similar situation from happening in the future, Alsop stated.
“While we are still investigating how the error occurred, I want to assure all employees that we will take the necessary steps and precautions to avoid any future disruptions in payroll. We will do everything we can to make sure it does not happen again,” he stated.
Alsop also apologized to employees on behalf of the university.
“It is never our intent to cause undue stress or hardship to our employees. We will work hard to make sure that such an error does not occur in the future,” he stated.