ST. PAUL, Minn. — The MinnState colleges system messed up its payroll and repeatedly underpaid and overpaid professors and other employees, according to a state audit. In some cases, no paychecks were issued at all. One overpayment was $16,200. The system’s personnel vice chancellor, Eric Davis, blamed a wobbly transition to a new software contractor. By now the errors have been corrected, said Davis. The MinnState system has 33 universities and colleges with 5,000 employees. These include Winna State University, Southeast Minnesota State in Winona and Red Wing, and Rochester Community College. The audit uncovered errors going back to 2023. How did it happen? The audit, by the Legislative Audit watchdog agency, blamed inadequate training of paymasters to use the new Workday software. Also at fault: Data-entry errors. Also: Systemic incompatibility among protocols at different campuses. The audit concluded too that Workday was not set up to use pre-2023 payroll data that fed ongoing accounts
