- April 16, 2026
Directors of Volusia County Schools' new software are hoping to build back trust following a recent incident where over 9,000 of the district's employees received an excess amount of retroactive pay.
During a Volusia County School Board workshop on Tuesday, April 14, FOCUS representatives said they had watched the board meeting from March 10 — during which district staff discussed the issue — and said the incident was not taken lightly.
"The employees shouldn't have to worry about their pay being correct, and it's an undue burden for them to have to go through that," said Richard Dean, FOCUS director of human resources and payroll.
On April 1, Volusia County Schools went live with the second phase of FOCUS, its new Enterprise Resource Planning system. According to the district, this brought onboard the last 10 of 18 software modules.
The second phase of implementation comes after over 9,000 VCS employees received an excess amount of retroactive pay in February due to a technical mistake the district reported was caused by FOCUS. The impacted employees included both current and former employees who were due retroactive pay after the recent salary raises.
The technical error caused these employees to receive close to double, and, in some cases, triple the slated amount of retroactive pay.
"It definitely was an eye opener to hear it from the employee perspective," said Martina Henry, director of ERP and customer success for FOCUS, which works with 10 school districts in the state.
How is FOCUS tackling the payroll issues?
Dean said it is being tackled in three sections: Technical improvements, audit improvements and support. Among the changes cited include less reliance on software checks, a bigger server size for faster payroll processing and weekly internal meetings to address any issues that may arise.
"We are also internally trying to figure out what else we can do to make the payroll go as smooth as possible," Dean said. "We are seeing the last couple pay runs have been better. They haven't been late in the evening, last minute, which is what got us in trouble in the past. So I feel like we have some momentum going forward with the team."
Henry added that FOCUS is dedicated to VCS in making the implementation of the new software — to be complete by July 1 — a success.
"The project management team will remain as long as we are needed before we turn it over to your account executive for full support," Henry said. "We're not going anywhere until it is fully signed off on and your account executive is able to handle the normal day-to-day operations of Volusia County Schools."
The district has reached an implementation point with its new software that it never did with its previous attempt at implementing an ERP, said Matt Kuhn, chief technology officer for VCS.
"We tried for five years and many millions of dollars to convert from Crosspoint to Oracle, and only got halfway there," he said, explaining that the HR module was never able to go live. "... That's not to say [FOCUS] doesn't have a lot of things we need tot fix, and not to say that problems don't happen that we find, but it's a big accomplishment."
Superintendent Carmen Balgobin said she wanted to go on the record to address "quite a bit of severe misconceptions that have been planted into our employees."
The district had to implement a new ERP, Balgobin said. It wasn't optional, for the reasons Kuhn stated —its last ERP wasn't designed for educational institutions.
Implementing a system like FOCUS, Balgobin said, for any superintendent in the state's 67 school district, is a "nerve-wracking process."
"No matter how preventative you are and all of the parameters that you will put in place, there will be issues," she said. "It's about the understanding that we create and how we handle when issues arise."
School Board member Donna Brosemer asked what can be done to "fix the damage that's already been done," saying she was concerned about the number of times she'd heard about substitute teachers not being paid for months.
"Ultimately, the burden of those mistakes is being borne by the people who can least afford to bear them," she said, adding that employees should not be held responsible for the mistake.
Kuhn said the substitute pay is an issue the district is still working on, and isn't one that is solely caused by FOCUS. It's also not system-wide.
Dean said FOCUS became aware of the concerns in January and early February and that a remediation plan has been put in place.
"We've also done an internal audit within our department to ensure that 100% of the subs who've been at work for validated jobs have been paid," he said.
Sharing responsibility, School Board member Jamie Haynes said, is the fairest way to proceed, as error have emerged from both the district and FOCUS.
"Moving forward, we just have to figure out when an issue arises, how we're going to address it," she said.
