- June 25, 2026
Frustration surrounding Volusia County Schools' new software continues as the school district hires a consulting firm to help with implementation.
The School Board approved a $420,000 piggyback contract with Protivity Government Services, Inc. with a 4-1 vote on Tuesday, June 23, to help VCS continue to implement its enterprise resource management system, Focus School Software. Matt Kuhn, chief technology officer for the school district, said Protivity will offer some augmented staff to the payroll team, which has been impacted by retirements. The consultant will also examine various processes and create standard operating procedures, he explained.
"It's more than, 'Let's find out what's going on with Focus,'" Kuhn said. "There's a lot more to it than that."
Protivity will also look at issues the district has run into with Focus, such as the W-2 corrections for 7% of VCS staff last spring, and work with the district to ensure they don't happen in the future.
School Board member Donna Brosemer was the lone vote against the contract, saying that the district continues to have issues with Focus, which will contribute $60,000 toward the contract cost with Protivity.
"There isn't a month that goes by that we don't hear about payroll problems in particular, and there never seems to be any accountability anywhere," Brosemer said, adding that she would be voting against the contract as a "protest vote."
Focus has not performed well, Brosemer said.
In terms of budget, Kuhn said the district had set aside about $1 million for implementation. To date, VCS has used about $600,000, so the remaining funds are paying for a large portion of the Protivity contract.
"The last time we implemented, we spent $7.8 million over four years, and were only able to implement half the ERP," Kuhn said. "This time it's a million dollars over two years, and still within budget, and still on time."
Protivity will grant the district another set of eyes to ensure the software is implemented to support the needs of VCS, School Board member Jamie Haynes said. The school district has 77 different pay types, which creates a margin for human errors, she said. The district was also working to transfer payroll data from an outdated 11-year-old software program.
"By supporting it, my belief is we will get to where we need to be so that we won't have any more of these issues, but it's going to take all of us working together," she said.
Brosemer said she knows Kuhn and district staff have been working hard to make Focus work.
"I know you feel the pain of the victims, but the victims are our teachers — our staff who bear the brunt of this, and so I'm taking it out on Protivity at this moment, and on this contract, but this has been building for a long time," Brosemer said. "I just wanted to be on the record that I'm very dissatisfied with everything I've seen in that aspect of their function so far, and I hope that this contract is the last we have to hear about the problems that we have with Focus Payroll, specifically."
