The Hidden Costs of Time Theft in K-12
The Subtle Ways Timekeeping Shapes Culture
Every district wants to build a culture of trust. But small employee timekeeping habits can quietly undermine it.
Time theft takes many forms: an employee clocking in remotely while still on the road, entering extra minutes to round up hours, using the workday for personal errands, or a colleague clocking in for someone else. Each act may seem minor in isolation, but over time, these moments add up to thousands of dollars in lost payroll, uneven accountability, and strained fairness across teams.
And the damage isn’t merely financial. When timekeeping rules start to feel optional, it changes the culture. “Helping a friend out” turns into routine bending of the rules. For leaders trying to model consistency, that’s a hard cultural trend to reverse.
Real Stories Behind the Numbers
Across the country, school districts have encountered various manifestations of this time theft issue—from falsified hours to full-fledged payroll fraud.
In Chicago Public Schools, the Inspector General reported that a school clerk stole more than $150,000 through falsified time entries and missing cash deposits over five years. About half came from fraudulent pay claims for work she never performed; the rest came from cash she was supposed to deposit. Weak oversight and missing records allowed the fraud to persist for years, prompting new verification measures.
In Biloxi, Mississippi, two maintenance employees were arrested for falsifying timecards and collecting thousands in unearned pay. And in Tennessee, a principal and teacher were indicted for submitting 37 fake timesheets totaling nearly $8,000 in extra wages.
These examples show how even small gaps in oversight can escalate—from “helping out” to headline-level fraud.
Nationwide, the American Payroll Association reports that three out of four organizations experience some form of time theft, costing employers more than $370 million every year. In public education, where payroll often exceeds 80% of the district’s budget, those stolen minutes matter.
Why It Happens
Understanding why employees take time-related shortcuts helps explain why the problem persists.
- Peer Pressure and Favors: It often starts as a well-intended favor—covering for someone who’s either running late or leaving early.
- Fear of Reprimand: In strict attendance environments, staff may feel cornered into asking for help to avoid write-ups.
- Low Awareness: Many employees view small adjustments as harmless rather than fraudulent.
- Cultural Creep: When supervisors ignore the behavior, it spreads.
- System Frustration: Paper logs, shared PINs, mobile clock-ins, and inconsistent processes make bending the rules easier.
Behavioral research shows that time theft isn’t always about dishonesty. It often reflects a culture where accountability tools feel punitive rather than supportive. The result is a quiet erosion of both trust and team morale.
The Limits of Traditional Fixes
Districts have tried nearly every deterrent: PINs, swipe cards, and biometric systems like fingerprint or facial recognition. Each carries trade-offs.
- PINs and badges can be shared.
- Fingerprint and facial recognition offer precision but introduce new risks.
Independent research from MIT Media Lab and the National Institute of Standards and Technology found that facial-recognition systems misidentify darker-skinned women up to 30 times more often than lighter-skinned men. In schools, where inclusion and fairness are essential, that’s more than a technical issue—it’s an equity concern.
Fingerprint and palm-vein clocks raise a different set of risks: legal exposure. Several states now regulate how biometric identifiers are collected, stored, and deleted. Illinois, Colorado, Texas, and Arkansas each require written consent, retention schedules, or breach-notification protocols for biometric data. In New York, employers may not require fingerprints for time clocks, and New York City separately mandates signage for any biometric collection.
As detailed in Biometric Time Clocks vs. Privacy Laws (July 2025), this patchwork of privacy laws makes biometric systems a moving compliance target. Even when secure, they demand the same diligence as student data systems—consent tracking, retention auditing, and breach-response planning.
For K-12 leaders, the takeaway is simple: technology can help, but not if it creates new risks around fairness, perception, or compliance.
Reframing Accountability
Preventing time theft is only part of the challenge. The real goal is to preserve trust while doing it.
Districts adopting this approach report smoother rollouts, fewer payroll exceptions, and improved staff confidence in time reporting systems.
Districts increasingly want timekeeping systems that make accountability visible and fair. That shift means moving from identification-based to documentation-based approaches—capturing objective proof of who clocked in without relying on algorithms to decide whether it counts.
In practice, this looks like pairing staff credentials (the same badges used for building access) with a quick photo at the moment of punch. It’s not surveillance; it’s transparent documentation that provides factual evidence if (and when) time disputes arise.
Buddy Punching: The Most Visible Form of Time Theft
While time theft takes many shapes, buddy punching remains the most visible—and the most solvable.
It’s easy to justify (“I was running late,” “We work the same shift”), but it’s also the one form of time fraud that a district can nearly eliminate with the right mix of policy and tools.
Physical badge authentication combined with photo documentation has proven to stop nearly all buddy punching incidents without adding complexity for staff. It closes the loop between trust and proof.
Building a Culture Where Accountability Feels Fair
Districts that reduce time theft most effectively combine clear policy with consistent tone:
- Explain the why. Staff understand that accurate time data protects everyone’s pay, not just the district’s budget.
- Create transparency. Be clear about what’s collected, why, and how long it’s stored.
- Lead with empathy. Handle exceptions quickly and fairly.
- Match tools to policy. Choose systems that reinforce fairness, not suspicion.
When employees see accountability as shared rather than imposed, compliance becomes part of culture instead of a compliance checkbox.
Proof in Practice
Districts across the country are already showing what this balance looks like—using systems that make accountability easy, not punitive.
“Unfortunately, the mobile app makes it easy for employees to buddy punch. You’ll have one staff member clocking in everyone else—it happens all the time.”
— Aaron Scott, Network Systems Administrator, Spring-Ford ASD
“We’ve paid out an incredible amount of overtime this year. With the SmartClock, it’s a more accurate reflection of the hours people are actually working.”
— Doug Culler, Director of Technology, Shenandoah County Public Schools
“For our district, SmartClocks closed compliance gaps and gave payroll confidence that every punch was accurate.”
— Director of Technology, Texas
“We intentionally require staff to use the physical time clocks—no mobile or desktop clock-ins. It’s about accountability and making sure people are where they need to be.”
— Jill Rowe, Berea City School District
These experiences share a common theme: districts want proof, not policing—systems that reinforce fairness, strengthen payroll accuracy, and build trust across their teams.
A Practical Path Forward
Modern timekeeping should feel like clarity, not surveillance.
Districts using Touchpoint SmartClocks, equipped with the PunchBuddy photo-documentation module, are finding that balance. Each badge punch captures a secure photo tied to that moment, creating verifiable proof of attendance without facial recognition or algorithmic matching.
It’s part of a broader shift from enforcement to evidence, and from suspicion to shared accountability.
Because in schools, trust isn’t just a core value—it’s essential to the work.
Building a Culture Where Accountability Feels Fair
👉 Read the White Paper: Safer Clocks for K‑12: Why Facial Documentation Beats Facial Recognition for Employee Time Tracking
Discover how your district can protect equity, privacy, and accuracy in time tracking:

Trey Windsor
Trey is a curious and data-minded marketer with a product development background and a passion for building smart, scalable solutions that connect people with real value. As a former hourly school employee, he also understands firsthand the everyday challenges educators and staff face—whether it's battling clunky paper time sheets or being unable to clock in when the internet’s down. Now, as a Marketing Associate at Touchpoint, Trey helps districts solve these pain points by championing solutions that make their work more efficient and human-centered. Outside of work, you might find him working out, spending time with loved ones, or chipping away at an ever-growing backlog of video games, movies, and books—some of which he swears he’ll finish... eventually.