City auditor: Pay system caused error

There may be findings for recovery for overpaying employees.
By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
STRUTHERS -- Since 1975, city employees, including elected and appointed officials, have apparently at times been both overpaid and underpaid.
The issue has bubbled to the surface as the city awaits the results of a state financial audit for 2003 and 2004.
Councilman-at-large Jerry L. Shields believes there will be findings for recovery against the city for overpaying its employees in 2003 and 2004, and he seems to be laying the blame on City Auditor Tina Morell.
Not so, said Morell in a letter to Shields with today's date.
Morell said Shields questioned why she had not followed instructions from the state auditor's office to begin collecting some of the money from some of the city's employees, saying she was aware there would be findings for recovery.
In her letter to Shields, she said she had in fact received the opposite direction from the state auditor.
"I have been instructed to do nothing until the audit is completed and released," she said.
Here was the cause
Morell explained that it is the pay system that Struthers used until she came into office in 2004 that caused the problem.
Under the old pay system, employees were paid using a twice-a-month "pay period" method. Under this system, there was a 10-day lag at the end of the year, resulting in employees' receiving some of their December pay in January.
Further, every 12 years, for instance 1992 and 2004, the problem was exacerbated by an extra 27th pay period.
Morell, who took office Jan. 2, 2004, said she did not immediately realize the system was faulty and issued the "lag" pay checks that already had been prepared by her predecessor.
Later, she instituted a "pay date" system in which there is no "lag" pay issued, and all salaried employees are paid their full salary in the correct calendar year.