Dalton Eyes New Software to Streamline Payroll
DALTON, Mass. — Since taking on the role of town manager, Eric Anderson has been finding ways to streamline operations to save on labor hours — now he is eyeing improving workforce management.
"By my rough math, we're chewing up some 1,500 hours a year doing payroll, and there's just no reason for that. The way we're doing it now is incredibly inefficient," he told the Select Board last week.
The board approved Anderson's recommendation to undergo contract negotiations with TimeClock Plus, a scheduling software designed to simplify employee time tracking and workforce management.
The town has 62 paid employees who currently submit their timesheets on paper, which are then manually reviewed by department heads, who calculate hours, vacation time, and prepare cover sheets before forwarding them to the treasurer or town manager to be approved.
The assistant treasurer then spends several days each week processing the town's payroll, Anderson said.
As part of his efforts to streamline this process, Anderson looked at multiple different services narrowing it down to TimeClock Plus, or TCP, because of its ease of integration with the town's regular financial software and that it's commonly used by municipalities.
"Some of the payroll programs are designed to go directly to payroll companies, but since we do our payroll in house, this cuts all the manual correlation, and it filters directly into our existing [Enterprise Resource Planning] financial software," he said.
The other software considered was UKG, which is commonly used by slightly larger municipalities and has a larger price tag, while TCP is used by smaller towns and is considerably less expensive, he said.
"We're right in the middle, so we could potentially either solution would be OK," Anderson said.
The town has done multiple trial runs of software, including one focused on the Police Department because of its complexity.
"The Police Department is the most difficult thing to administer because they do a four-on-two-off shift. Some months, people work more total days than other months," Anderson said.
"So, you need a program that's capable of dealing with accounting for that in a police department, so everybody gets paid right and also deals with all the stipends that are, in some cases absolute and in other cases percentage based."
After the last demonstration, Police Chief Deanna Strout said she was happy with TimeClock Plus, he said.
"I think this is a good decision on the town's part. It'll save us a lot of man hours and labor for a finance department that is constantly short of labor hours," Anderson said.
First-year costs are anticipated at about $14,000, including hardware, with the hope of implementation after the new year.
The system would use fingerprint or keycode scanners at town facilities, while police would clock in and out via a mobile app on their issued phones, he explained.
To support a smooth transition, Anderson proposed a two-month overlap period during which both digital and paper timesheets would be maintained. At the end of that period, the paper system would be phased out entirely.
Several months ago, Anderson told board members that he believed there are a series of steps needed "to do a better job of governance and control of the town."
One was updating the town's website, which the Select Board has hired Town Web Design LLC to do. That contract is under legal review and was expected to be finalized last week.
The cost of the website's overhaul is covered from an allocation voters approved at a previous town meeting.
Another step was the implementation of dedicated budget software. In February, the Select Board approved engaging in a potential contract with the budgeting software ClearGov for next fiscal year.
Tags: software,
