diff --git a/SAS/ResourceAssignment/ResourceAssignmentDatabase/radb.py b/SAS/ResourceAssignment/ResourceAssignmentDatabase/radb.py
index 009a985b89aa47ad749cee6e379981031bc260b7..0319492e10c02d9bfd04581768a0bc001329ea11 100644
--- a/SAS/ResourceAssignment/ResourceAssignmentDatabase/radb.py
+++ b/SAS/ResourceAssignment/ResourceAssignmentDatabase/radb.py
@@ -1335,7 +1335,7 @@ class RADatabase:
             # use psycopg2 mogrify to parse and build the insert values
             # this way we can insert many values in one insert query, returning the id's of each inserted row.
             # this is much faster than psycopg2's executeMany method
-            insert_values = ','.join(self.cursor.mogrify('(%s, %s, %s, %s, %s, %s, %s, %s, %s)', cv) for cv in claim_values)
+            insert_values = ','.join(self.cursor.mogrify("(%s, %s, %s, %s, %s, %s, %s, %s, %s)", cv).decode("UTF-8") for cv in claim_values)
         except Exception as e:
             logger.error("Invalid input, rolling back: %s\n%s" % (claim_values, e))
             self.rollback()