Defense attorneys, court reporters, expert witnesses and investigators have not been paid in six weeks, said Douglas Huff, the president of the Dallas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. Some are owed more than $50,000 in back pay.
Unpaid contractors and court-appointed attorneys also add to the growing number of county workers who recently have not been paid on time. More than 200 Dallas County employees — most in law enforcement — were not paid at the usual time Friday, and many others did not receive the correct amount of pay.
In updating the payroll system, county auditor Darryl Thomas told county commissioners there have been rippling ramifications. He did not respond to questions from The News by Tuesday evening.
The county updated its Oracle financial management system to a new version, shutting down the previous system on April 20. Once the Oracle system was updated, there were problems. The financial system and Kronos Workforce Central Solution System’s time card programs no longer cohesively worked.
During the time it took the county to resolve the systems’ discrepancies, county officials told commissioners that a backlog of invoices grew. The system that normally processes all pay requests crashed due to the large backlog.
Thomas told commissioners that the system is working now, but county officials are behind on processing those payments that come in large batches.
“We are having a little problem on the indigent defense side — on getting the files all at once. But we are running checks, and we have been running checks since Friday,” he said. “They are checks that are being printed, and they are coming out of the system.”
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