Paychecks Delayed for 13,000 San Diego County Home Care Workers
About 13,000 home care workers in San Diego County who provide services for elderly and disabled patients have received their paychecks late because the staff at the county In-Home Supportive Services Public Authority, which last year took over as the workers' formal employer, is insufficiently trained and lacks adequate computer equipment, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. The county Board of Supervisors established the authority last July to allow county home care workers to negotiate for higher wages and health benefits, the Union-Tribune reports. However, authority workers were trained by temporary county employees who "barely knew the system better than they did," Bud Sayles, the authority's executive director, said, adding that the authority began with only four of the eight computers required to complete the payroll on time. In an e-mail sent to the supervisors last week, Sayles said that his staff has entered a backlog of more than 23,000 timecards into the authority's computer system, and home care workers should receive their paychecks soon. Sayles added that the authority now has access to more computer terminals and staff (Rother, San Diego Union-Tribune, 7/25).
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