Employees can use fingerprints as the key to unlock information about payroll information, such as the balance remaining in leave time.
This week saw Evesham Council hold a special meeting to approve just one agenda item — awarding payroll-processing services for the next five years to the ADP, LLC for an annual amount of about $51,000.
According to township manager Tom Czerniecki, ADP’s bid was nearly $6,000 less than the next lowest, and the bid includes several technological enhancements over the township’s current provider, including the use of biometrics.
Through biometric technology, township employees will be able to access a kiosk by using their fingerprints as the key necessary to unlock information about their specific payroll information, such as the balance remaining in their leave time.
“This saves the taxpayers about $6,000 in actual cash, and even more in productivity improvements because there’s a lot of biometric stuff in terms of record keeping and being able to access your records and scanning into work,” Czerniecki said. “We’re really excited about the changeover.”
Officials also say this will be the first time Evesham will be using biometric technology.
Czerniecki also offered his praise to Evesham Township’s chief financial officer Tom Shanahan, human resources coordinator Diana Dicicco and treasurer Elizabeth Peddicord for their work in putting together the original bid packet and analyzing what services could improve the township.
Shanahan also agreed with Czerniecki that the new service would save money in terms of efficiency for administrators who have to deal with data entry and other management issues.
Shanahan said the switch would be especially useful between the township’s human resources department and the police department’s attendance system, as now the two systems would link together electronically.
“It’s hard to put a number to the efficiency savings, but it’s probably a couple of hours each week, and you put that over 26 pays a year, that starts turning into some significant money,” Shanahan said.
According to Shanahan, the new system will also improve the efficiency of the public works department, parks department and township-owned golf course, all three of which largely use manual record keeping for human resource needs on a departmental level.
“That will automate three departments that were previously not automated, and it will allow the township to link two systems that were previously stand alone with police attendance system and the township’s human resources,” Shanahan said.
Czerniecki also thanked council for agreeing to hold the special meeting despite the single agenda item, as Czerniecki said approving the bid as soon as possible would allow the township more time to prepare to implement the system before Jan. 1.
“By meeting early and awarding this contract now, we realize that there’s a lot of administrative work that has to be in place in order to switch over,” Czerniecki said.
The next regularly scheduled meeting of the Evesham Township Council is set for Nov. 21 at 6:30 p.m.
