Novopay issues remain high on the list of concerns for Otago schools, despite Minister Responsible for Novopay Steven Joyce saying pay periods 16 and 17 had the lowest number of complaints and notifications since monitoring began in February.
Reports released yesterday showed 88,766 people were paid a total of $173.6 million in pay period 16 (October 30), and 89,955 people were paid a total of $176.18 million in pay period 17 (November 13).
In pay period 15, complaints and notifications about not being paid, or being underpaid or overpaid, were received from staff at 118 schools.
That number dropped to 58 schools in pay period 16 and 68 schools in pay period 17.
''Pay period 17 was the 17th of the last 18 pay rounds below the 0.5% steady state error level identified by the technical review team,'' Mr Joyce said.
''What is pleasing is that pay periods 16 and 17 had the lowest number of complaints and notifications received since we began monitoring the performance of pay periods in February.
''The challenge will be to maintain the steady performance as we head into the complex end of year/start of year process.''
Otago Primary Principals' Association president Stephanie Madden said principals were not impressed by the figures.
''Certainly, the Novopay issues have not gone away for schools.
''We still have holiday pay problems not being resolved from Christmas last year.
''While there may be the reductions in the number of errors, there are still issues for schools. A lot of them are from a long time ago.
''At school meetings, Novopay is still high on the list of concerns.''
Mrs Madden said schools were significantly out of pocket for the issues created by Novopay.
''A year on, they haven't been reimbursed.''
Otago Primary Principals' Association immediate past president Whetu Cormick said his school, Bathgate Park School, was still trying to resolve five issues where staff had been overpaid in 2012.
''It continues to be frustrating, dealing with the Novopay staff,'' he said.
