The launch of UCPath, a new system proposed by the University of California that will act as a centralized payroll and human resource solution for UC employees, has been delayed for the second time in the past year and is expected to cost three times more than initially expected, as first reported by the Sacramento Bee.
UCPath was first launched in September 2011 with a $156 million budget and a 36-month timeline, said UC spokesperson Ricardo Vazquez in an email. In February 2016, the pilot campus deployment was delayed from August to December 2017, and last month, the timeline was revised again to add a two-part launch in July and December 2018, according to a UC Office of the President press release. The total cost is anticipated to be $503.8 million, including a $26 million insurance for unexpected costs, Vazquez said in his email.
“Additional testing was needed in the most complex part of the work, which involves converting data from the old payroll systems into UCPath,” Vazquez said in his email. “UC currently maintains 11 different payroll systems across 20 different locations. They are old, inefficient, increasingly fragile and difficult to maintain.”
UCPath would replace CalTime, UC Berkeley’s current system for tracking employee hours, in December 2018, the start of Deployment 2. Other institutions that will switch to UCPath in the Deployment 2 phase include Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, UC San Diego and UC San Francisco.
When CalTime was first implemented in 2012, employees found it difficult to understand how to operate the system and communicate with the campus.
“Morale is pretty much down for all workers,” Armando Voluntad, who then worked with facility services on campus, previously told The Daily Californian. “They’re disappointed in the whole CalTime system and how it doesn’t seem to be working.”
Although UCPath has not yet been implemented within the entire UC system, it was deployed successfully at UCOP in November 2015, according to a UCOP press release.
“UCOP is our first location to launch UCPath, and employees can expect their UCPath experience to evolve as we add additional functions with future deployments,” said Mark Cianca, UCPath program director, in a press release.
