Payroll and Human Resources will be “going green” by next quarter, said the payroll tax coordinator.Shelli Barr-Majors, payroll tax coordinator, said there are two main things they hope to accomplish by “going green.”

“To us, going green is trying to eliminate wasteful paper,” Barr-Majors said. “It also means security – no lost checks or information floating around where someone could steal an identity.”

Barr-Majors said when the department sat down and looked at the amount of paper they used every day, it was an eye opener.

According to Payroll campaign fliers, TCU prints more than 26,000 checks and envelopes a year. It also shows they print more than 46,000 purple advices (check stubs without the check) and envelopes and 4,800 W-2s – which are wage and tax statements.

Barr-Majors said with new software, all the information can be found online, even deposited paychecks.

“We would like to have this done by the end of January because that’s when the W-2s are due,” said Debby Watson, director of Payroll Services.

Payroll is hoping to get the students onboard with its campaign because they are becoming very environmentally conscious, Barr-Majors said.

“Students know how important it is to ‘go green,’ and they are more accept(ing of) change,” Barr-Majors said. “They would be our best audience. They would be excited and want to do this.”

Watson said there are about 1,500 students on payroll who are ignoring her e-mails.

“I keep sending them e-mails, but if I were to take a guess, students see an e-mail from me, and they are just deleting them,” Watson said. “I don’t think students look at advices either because they get lost in the mail.”

Watson said the campaign is not working for students because the message is not getting across.

“If I can get the right message across to the students, they will get it,” Watson said. “‘Going green’ appeals to students.”

The payroll department has been trying to encourage the switch for two years, and Watson said they send information to everyone on payroll but not many people are taking advantage of it.

“First thing we are trying to do is promote direct deposit and not print the advices because you can see everything online,” Barr-Majors said.

Watson said if students and employees enroll in direct deposit they could see every check in their name from TCU since 1998.

Barr-Majors said there is so much new technology out there and that it should be used to the maximum advantage to preserve resources.

“This is a big thing that we are doing and it makes us wonder what the other departments are doing,” Barr-Majors said. “It would just get better and better through the generations.”

Human Resources is also trying to eliminate the amount of paper floating around the office.

“There is a system that allows us to scan vital documents into the computer,” Barr-Majors said. “So the whole HR is working on trying to eliminate having so many pieces of paper.”

Barr-Majors said those papers hold vital information about employees, and they cannot have that information on paper because of the threat of it falling into the wrong hands.

The payroll department is taking its cue from stations such as NBC5 that have been campaigning their “going green” slogans, Barr-Majors said.

“Everything has gone green, and we decided that was the way to go,” Barr-Majors said. “We want the word out that we are trying to do something good and help the community.