S.F. schools abandon disastrous payroll system after spending $34M

I've been screaming this for years: there was never a rational reason not to buy off-the-shelf solutions. This problem is identical to those faced by thousands, even millions, of other organizations. The solution has been developed and refined for decades. Why should a single school district try to reinvent the wheel from scratch? There must have been bribes and kickbacks involved, as there is no other explanation for them choosing this path over utilizing existing solutions. It's astounding that people haven't been imprisoned for this yet.

How can a payroll system cost that much? Certainly it’s a solved problem since many other districts manage payroll just fine. Any reason this isn’t just corruption?

You are not alone.<p>The French military payroll system (codename Louvois) took 20 years of attempts to be finally abandonned. It costed about 150 millons euros every year since 2011 and the initial cost was estimated at 60 millions....

This is so embarrassing.

I wonder what this will do the stock of Infosys, and whether it will affect their reputation. And did they really develop it from scratch, or did they deploy an existing system, which then required custom work?