The cost of fixing Novopay has hit $11 million with the announcement of a $6 million compensation package for schools afflicted by the payroll system.
The Government announced the funding on Tuesday, saying that each school will get $500 plus $105 per teacher to make up for additional costs they are incurring.
Steven Joyce said schools will be allocated money depending on their size. Photo: RNZ
The minister responsible for Novopay, Steven Joyce, also released findings of a technical audit of the teacher payroll system,which says the core software is unstable but can be fixed.
Mr Joyce told Checkpoint he expects there will be some recompense from the company behind Novopay, Talent2, for what schools and the Government have spent.
He says how much may come down to legalities and will only be sorted out once efforts to deal with the current problems have played out.
Mr Joyce says his first priority is keeping the system on the rails
Thousands of school staff have been underpaid, overpaid or not paid at all since the Novopay system was introduced in August last year.
Schools have to do extra administrative work to sort out the mistakes.
An Auckland school says if Novopay errors still persist at the middle of the year, it will ask the Government for more compensation.
Fiona Cottam, the deputy principal of Epsom Girls Grammar, says her school will receive $14,000, which is welcome and will make some difference.
But if the errors in they payroll system persist through to June, she will be going back and asking for more money
Stability possible
The technical audit says a stable Novopay system can be achieved, provided significant additional resources and capability are made available.
But the Government has confirmed that a backlog of about 19,000 overpayments, underpayments and non-payments continues to dog the school payroll system.
Mr Joyce says there's still significant work to do to clear the slew of problems.
Labour Party education spokesperson, Chris Hipkins, says schools will welcome the money but many will also ask why it took so long for the offer to be put forward.
And he says that $6 million is at the lower end of what the Government could have offered.
Mr Hipkins says schools now want to know when the problems with Novopay will be fixed once and for all.
And Mr Hipkins says schools now want to know when the problems with Novopay will be fixed once and for all.
Mr Joyce says the Government is sticking with the Australian company that developed the system, Talent2, for at least the next couple of months, as it works to improve the Novopay system.
But as a back-up, he says the Government will continue to work on an alternative proposal with the former provider Datacom.
