Finance Committee Meeting on Payroll Modernization - February 3, 2026
Finance Committee Meeting on Payroll Modernization - February 3, 2026
The Finance Committee of the Syracuse City Council held a long-awaited meeting on February 3, 2026, to discuss the payroll modernization project, specifically the proposed agreement with Mosaic Consulting Group to proceed with the next steps of implementing a new Human Capital Management (HCM) system. The meeting included a presentation from city staff detailing the project's history, current challenges, accomplishments, and the path forward. The council expressed hesitancy due to past project delays and costs, but staff outlined key improvements in strategy and vendor selection.
Discussion Items
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Presentation Overview and Project History: Josh Syerson (Project Manager, API) and Mike (HR/Payroll representative) presented a comprehensive review. The project began in 2020 with an initial focus on Oracle Fusion, which was ultimately abandoned due to integration issues and high costs. The city has spent approximately $7.8 million over 5-6 years, with about half going to SWC (timekeeping) and half to Oracle. The new direction is to adopt UKG Pro, a cloud-based HCM platform, with Mosaic as the implementation partner. The presenters emphasized that UKG is already the parent company of the city's current timekeeping systems (SWC and Telestaff), simplifying integration. They stressed that the new approach is a software-as-a-service model ("leasing a car" rather than "building a car"), reducing maintenance burdens.
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Current Challenges and Accomplishments: Staff described the current payroll system as highly manual, relying on the aging AS400 and paper timesheets. Examples included a 40-hour effort to correct retro payments for 24 police officers, and a check issued for $10,000 to a water worker due to errors. There is distrust in payroll accuracy among employees. Accomplishments in 2025 included moving the bi-weekly payroll to an arrears state (Sunday-to-Saturday period), which allows better use of the SWC system, and extensive business process mapping. The rollout of SWC digital timekeeping is 70% live, with another substantial portion ready but pending bandwidth for support.
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Budget and Staffing Concerns: Councilor Williams questioned why this attempt would be different from past failures. Staff responded that they have a better internal strategy, more cohesive leadership (including the Deputy Mayor, Director of HR, CFO, and First Deputy Commissioner of Finance), and have done thorough process mapping. They noted that the city has already reduced the number of vendors from many to just a few. Regarding staffing, the project currently has about 5-6 full-time dedicated staff, with potential to add 1-2 more during implementation. Staff argued that the new system would free up existing staff for higher-value work, not lead to layoffs.
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Technology and Functionality: Councilor Moore asked about the possibility of using a third-party processor like ADP or Paychex. Staff explained that they evaluated ADP but found costs prohibitive (tens of thousands per month) and that employees prefer picking up checks locally. UKG Pro will include modules for demographic data, payroll, position management, employee self-service, applicant tracking, and compliance. The system will allow employees to view W-2s online and update their own information. The timeline for decommissioning the AS400 for payroll/HR is July 1, 2027, pending successful implementation.
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Training and Change Management: Councilor Gardner asked about resistance to change among departments. Staff acknowledged initial resistance but cited examples from the Water Department, where after five months of live usage, employees reported fewer paycheck errors and appreciated visibility into hours. Training includes department-specific sessions, office hours, and an employee-facing website with videos and courses. New hires will receive training as part of onboarding. The system is web-based, so employees could potentially access it remotely, but the city does not have a formal remote work policy.
Key Outcomes
- No formal vote was taken on the proposed agreement with Mosaic. The item is a holdover from the previous council session, and the council expressed caution about approving another major expenditure after past project costs. The committee agreed to continue discussions, with staff promising to provide a projected timeline and detailed cost breakdown (including the $7.8 million spent to date) for the next meeting.
- Staff indicated that the implementation timeline for UKG Pro with Mosaic is approximately 12-18 months, with a target go-live by June/July 2027. Without Mosaic, the city would attempt a self-implementation that could take 3-5 years and would risk losing support for the current SWC system (end of life March 2027).
- The council requested that any future contract include built-in benchmarks and performance milestones before funds are dispersed.
- The meeting was adjourned with a motion.
Meeting Transcript
Three o'clock on President Pan Yagwood's phone. Um we have the long-awaited committee meeting of the finance committee on the payroll modernization, uh, as it relates to a longstanding item on our agenda that is a in agreement with Mosaic to proceed with the next steps of payroll modernization. Uh with me Councillor Nave, Counselor Paniagua, myself, Councillor Jones Rowser. Um, and if you all wouldn't mind introducing ourselves. My name is Josh Syerson. I'm a project manager in the API department. Okay, perfect. Okay. And um we've got counselor more, you might want to come over here. Gotcha. And really wanted to come together today. I'm glad that counselor Moore is joining us, one of our new counselors. Uh if you wouldn't mind kind of running through a brief brief history of where we're at, or how we got here, where we're at, and kind of the path forward. And I'm not sure who wants to take the lead, but we've been here before. But yeah, so I I think um the presentation does a great job of that of just where we started, um, where we are, you know, the original objectives of the project, um, some of the issues we've had um in our vision. So there's the agenda, um, you know, project overview objectives, our overview of our current systems, um, what did we accomplish in 2025, um, some of the challenges we're still uh experiencing, as well as um what we would like um as far as the city's vision for the next uh for the new HCM. Um I think our ask as far as the next steps and the considerations and then uh questions. Um Josh did a very good job preparing this PowerPoint, so I I would ask um, I mean, if you have some timely questions, you know, feel free to interject, but we do have very robust robust uh appendices um with kind of you know project to date, current status as far as you know, uh SWC implementation. So um you know, I I think we could best answer your questions uh at the end. So um if you could move to the next slide. Um so these are the overall objectives of why we're doing payroll modernization, and I'll I'll add it off to uh um my colleague Mike here to go over the first bullet point. Sure. So improved business processes and employee services. Um, you know, just the first step here is a modernized payroll and human capital management system would revolutionize how we do things in the HR department and across the city as a whole. Um, you know, one of the things that's this is touching on much more than payroll. Uh this is also something that is going to improve personnel transactions of all kinds. It's going to increase reliability and speed of changes. Um, one quick example, if we want to change an employee status currently under our system as it is, we need to print a screenshot of the AS400 with the employees' information. Go to the copier, hand print what the changes are going to be on that piece of paper, return to the copier, scan it to our email, and then attach it to our docu-sign process to send a payroll for a change. With an actual modern human capital system, it's a few keystrokes and a click. And we have that same process completed in seconds rather than 10 to 15 minutes. Um it also opens a pathway for us for employee uh self-maintenance of their information. So a self-service model would allow our employees to go in, make any kind of changes to their um information, um, you know, update addresses, make changes in um open enrollment, things like that. So it really opens a path for a much more interactive and engaging and satisfying employee experience. Thanks, Mike. Um, and then the next bullet points sustainable and financial, financially responsible payroll management. Um so currently, you know, we have a weekly payroll, uh, we have a bi-weekly payroll, and then there's also the Sura payroll. Um I would say it's the staff experience right now that if they're getting a pay stub, it's almost they're looking at what's wrong. They're they're expecting that something's gonna be wrong with their pay stub. Um, you know, we distributed W-2s uh late last week, and then that that's all the uh those are all the questions that are coming to the window. You know, this is wrong because there's so much distrust, uh distrust with payroll um in its current state. Um it's it's currently a very manual process. I I brought a prop here, as you can see. This is our AS400, you know, print screen of this is one bi-weekly payroll, and then the stack of paper on top is um all of the changes that uh resulted in a bi-weekly payroll. Um with this manual process, there's obviously uh it's it's prone to error. Um, you know, someone transposing a number, adding an extra zero, um, which typically results in uh very time consuming retro pays. We just um, which typically fall into me. Uh we just had 24 police officers that received a retro payment dating back to 2021 because of step and grade um issues. Um that took probably you know, between my staff and myself, you know, 40 working hours just to do 24 corrections. Um so ideally, in a new um in a new system that there would be a lot of efficiencies there.
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