At least one UC San Diego student did not receive a paycheck during the latter half of fall quarter.

Jennell Encizo, a fourth year Muir College student, did not receive a paycheck for almost a month, due to payroll issues showing that she was overpaid for the amount of over 50 hours. Encizo told The Triton that she had not received a paycheck since November 27, despite reaching out to both supervisors and the UCSD payroll office for help. Encizo said she finally received a paycheck over winter break.

Encizo works for both Muir College and the UCSD Athletics department as a student employee. According to the emails between Encizo and UCSD Athletics, she had 55.25 “negative hours,” indicating that UCSD overpaid her for 55.25 hours, which are being taken out of her paychecks. According to the emails, when this happens, UCSD usually requests a check from the recipient for repayment.

However, Encizo told The Triton that when she went to the UCSD Payroll office after finals, an office employee told her that “we have over 33,000 workers, we can’t keep track of who is not getting paid, because it’s not our fault, it’s the department’s.” The Triton was unable to obtain clarification from UCSD about these comments.

UCSD Communications Officer Erika Johnson told The Triton that UCSD is “not aware of any non-payments to students.”

Students at UC Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara, and others UCs have either received inaccurate or delayed paychecks following the ongoing rollout of UC PATH, the new payroll system for the UC system, since 2018.

UC PATH is not expected to rollout at UCSD until May 2020 and, according to Johnson, the campus is “working towards a successful implementation.”

While UC PATH has not rolled out, UCSD students are no strangers to late or inaccurate paychecks. Last January, The UCSD Guardian reported that a Transportation Services payroll error forced some student workers to go months without pay, making it difficult to pay rent or buy food.

“Not getting my paycheck was really stressful, since I didn’t receive it on the promised day (November 27) which severely impacted how I was able to pay rent and eat on campus. The Muir dean of student affairs helped me by getting community dining dollars to eat on campus. That next pay period, I didn’t get anything either which was super upsetting and didn’t help that I was going through my last round of midterms/finals during all of this.”

We encourage any student employees who have not received paychecks, or facing any other labor related issues, to either direct message The Triton on social media, or email our managing editor at managing@triton.news.

Ethan Edward Coston is the Managing Editor of The Triton. You can follow him @Ethan4Books.