Some Detroit-area cops earned less than minimum wage due to Oracle software glitch, lawsuit says

“Deputies have complained repeatedly to payroll staff… but are being told errors would be fixed in the ‘next check,’” the suit contends. “The corrections have never come.”

There are 650 deputy sheriffs in Wayne County. Salaries start at $48,654 a year, or about $23 an hour.

When the issue first arose nearly two years ago, the president of the union that represents Wayne County deputies, said one officer got a paycheck for 48 cents.

At the time, the county issued a statement saying it was “fully committed to resolving all pay inaccuracies,” and that it had engaged “key consultants and mobilized additional resources to address the issues promptly and will do so to ensure a complete resolution.”

However, attorney Carla Aikens, who is representing the named plaintiffs in the case, Deputies Yonnell Haston and Bernard Muhammad, said that resolution never happened.

“My clients have raised these issues to the county to have them fixed, and they've remained unfixed to date,” Aikens told The Independent. “We have to go forward with this action – we hoped we could avoid it – but they have to get their money to which they're entitled.”

Mara MacDonald, a spokeswoman for the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office, said Friday’s inquiry by The Independent was the first the department had heard of the lawsuit, and declined to comment. A spokesman for Wayne County, Doda Lulgjuraj, said the county also had not yet been served with the suit and that it would be premature to comment.

Wayne County and the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office are named as defendants; Oracle is not.

In June 2024, the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office transitioned its payroll system from PeopleSoft to Oracle, according to the complaint by Haston and Muhammad.

From the first paycheck, deputies “have routinely received shorted paychecks that have omitted regular wages, overtime, holiday pay and accrued leave,” the complaint states. “Sick and vacation balances were deleted, premium pay for holidays and double-time shifts was denied and overtime hours were systematically undercounted… In some cases, supervisors have threatened retaliation, including withholding pay, if deputies seek compensation for missed or interrupted breaks.”

Muhammad, according to the complaint, normally works “extensive overtime, often 60–80 hours per pay period, yet since June 2024 his paychecks have failed to reflect those hours.” Haston, it continues, has not been paid for at least 48 hours of overtime, and lost his sick days and vacation time when they were mistakenly deleted from the system, preventing him from taking necessary family medical leave.

Payroll staff blamed the issues on “user error,” according to the complaint, which argues that “the entries were correct.”

As a result, Wayne County “has retained the benefit of hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid labor from sheriffs required to work overtime and holidays without full compensation,” the complaint states.

Oracle, the technology behemoth co-founded by Larry Ellison, the third-wealthiest person in the world, has been blamed for similar issues in other cities using its payroll software. In October, employees with the Rochester City School District spoke out about improper deductions being taken from their checks following a switch to Oracle. Teachers in Baltimore reportedly found errors and discrepancies in their paychecks last November after the county began using Oracle, as did educators in Syracuse. Earlier this year, employees in Fort Myers, Florida, faced such severe payroll delays due to a newly implemented Oracle system that officials considered switching back to the old one.

Ellison was named in a 2017 class action lawsuit accusing Oracle of underpaying women staffers, which the company settled in 2024 for $25 million. The 81-year-old is a longtime Republican donor and a close ally of President Donald Trump, known for participating in an infamous 2020 phone call to try and hash out ways to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election win. While Ellison has hosted fundraisers for Trump, who recently helped pave the way for Ellison’s son David to acquire CBS, David gave nearly $1 million to Biden’s 2024 re-election fund.

Haston and Muhammad, along with the rest of the plaintiffs in the class action, are now seeking unpaid wages, minimum wages, overtime, and benefits, liquidated damages, statutory penalties, damages for breach of contract, restitution and disgorgement, and pre- and post-judgment interest, plus attorneys’ fees and costs, as well as injunctive relief requiring payroll corrections and restoration of leave.

An Oracle spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.