Mission CISD

Mission CISD is a recognized leader in college and career readiness in the Rio Grande Valley!  We offer more quality college prep and career prep opportunities than any local charter school or private school.  Educational excellence is available to each student that attends a Mission CISD school.

Vision Statement

Mission CISD will prepare and inspire all students to be equipped to excel in the college and career of their choice.  They will demonstrate 21st century skills and expertise in leadership, knowledge and technology to compete in a global economy and serve as successful citizens in their community.

Organization Overview

The District employs approximately 2840 employees, both full and part-time and serves almost 16,000 students in the City of Mission and the neighboring communities of Alton and Palmhurst.

The School District includes three high schools, four junior high schools (grades 6-8), 14 elementary schools (grades pk-5), a Newcomers Academy for recent immigrants in grades 2-5, and an alternative school to serve students considered to be at-risk. Our high schools consist of two traditional/comprehensive schools (STEM Academy and Career Tech Early College Academy) and an Early College High School.  In addition, we offer a non-traditional high school program (Options Academy) to give qualifying students a second chance at completing their requirements in order to earn their high school diploma.

Hiram Burguete – Payroll Supervisor

Hiram is Mission CISD’s Payroll Supervisor skilled in asset protection, financial management, employee, and customer relations.. He is in charge of the Payroll Department and Benefits and has extensive experience in high-volume, business operations.  Hiram demonstrates innovative vision while managing operations at Mission CISD with solid experience overseeing multiple projects, including payroll operations, human resources, budgeting and administration.

Mission CISD challenges prior to using WebSTS (Web Supplement Tracker Software) “were extremely time consuming on every single piece of paper that came into our office; I mean every single piece of paper. An example is in May we had 206 supplements. The supplement could vary from 1 person to 30 people on one supplement to 50 people on a supplement to 75 people on one supplement. All this data needs to be collectively keyed in to payroll for people to be paid.”

“The problem we solved with WebSTS was less errors a lot less errors, errors keying in people, miss paying people dollar amounts that were incorrect, funding miss paying, different budgets being used, people being paid from different campuses that did not belong to that campus.   Paperwork misplaced or lost, we had problems with deadlines we were not meeting for payroll.”

“So let’s take an example in May we had 206 supplements. I would tell my staff to start keying in these supplements and like I said before we could have 1 person to 75 people on one supplement. Now let us be very conservative and say we had only 15 people as supplements. That is 3090 key strokes entries. Now let’s say we have 150 key strokes per person. That is 463,500 key strokes (206 X 15 = 3090 X 150 = 463,500) what is your margin of error! Huge! Huge! it is mind boggling, and people will make mistakes.”

Mission’s payrolls department runs a supplement extra duties pay around $750,000 to $1,000,000 for supplement pay on average. Mission wanted to reduce the amount of errors users were making in the billing and payroll departments. After trying a few manual fixes, we conducted online research and came across WebSTS. Alocore Systems providers of WebSTS software that includes a complete process of supplement pay and approvals, which fit perfectly into our payroll wheelhouse. After a short review of WebSTS, we made the decisions to move forward with Alocore Systems WebSTS.

Mission and Hiram have been instrumental in providing a beta site and serving as a District-wide user for WebSTS.  You could say the WebSTS was developed by a school for schools.

During the time Mission served as a testing ground for WebSTS, errors were decreased both within the payroll system and by the end user due to the ease of use of WebSTS’s electronic system.  This resulted in an increase in staff time to concentrate or other areas to ensure the budget was accurate and up-to-date.  In addition, by using WebSTS, Mission’s payroll staff is now able to have at their fingertips paperwork needed for payroll. Often this paperwork needed to be chased down by the payroll staff. This problem went away with WebSTS because of entering information electronically and this makes it very easy to meet payroll deadlines.

With Mission CISD using WebSTS the payroll department can go into the new school year feeling prepared and more efficient, which in turn makes our school district more effective.  The benefits we have experienced as a school department are endless.  Our staff has been more productive and because the system allows for them to be more efficient, we have lessened budgetary concerns and have strengthened our financial landscape. Staff can easily locate paperwork and know who is responsible for the sign-off process, resulting in allowing them to focus on other pressing concerns.

In closing, “It is very nice that someone finally paid attention to the payroll department by making one part of the payroll process a lot smoother.” – Hiram Burguete – Payroll Supervisor