Federal government overpaid more than 20,000 public servants

[Mowich]

The malfunctioning Phoenix pay system that left thousands of Canada’s public servants unpaid has also doled out millions of dollars in overpayments to 13,700 employees since its ill-fated launch.

A letter sent to MPs on the government operations committee says a total of 20,600 public servants had received overpayments of more than $56 million by mid-October.

The $56 million in overpayments were generated by two pay systems — the old clunky regional pay system and the new Phoenix system, whose first phase went live in February.

The old pay system, which was decommissioned after the second phase of Phoenix was rolled out in April, generated $23 million in overpayments.

It’s unclear how much Phoenix issued in overpayments. The department said some recoveries have been made, leaving $33 million to be collected as of mid-October.

The department earlier told the Citizen, however, that Phoenix produced $39 million in overpayments to about 5.2 per cent of the 300,000-strong public service between the end of April and September.

Stories of overpayments abound.

Public servants have received payday surprises of small amounts or thousands of dollars in overpayments. Some people have been paid two salaries, one regular salary and another, full acting salary when filling in jobs. Some retirees continued to receive paycheques after retiring. Others continued to get paid after taking a leave. And others received double severance payments.

And in some cases, the system can’t catch the error: the government won’t know about the overpayments unless employees report it.

It just gets worse........................

Federal government overpaid more than 20,000 public servants | Ottawa Citizen

 

[JLM]

The malfunctioning Phoenix pay system that left thousands of Canada’s public servants unpaid has also doled out millions of dollars in overpayments to 13,700 employees since its ill-fated launch.

A letter sent to MPs on the government operations committee says a total of 20,600 public servants had received overpayments of more than $56 million by mid-October.

The $56 million in overpayments were generated by two pay systems — the old clunky regional pay system and the new Phoenix system, whose first phase went live in February.

The old pay system, which was decommissioned after the second phase of Phoenix was rolled out in April, generated $23 million in overpayments.

It’s unclear how much Phoenix issued in overpayments. The department said some recoveries have been made, leaving $33 million to be collected as of mid-October.

The department earlier told the Citizen, however, that Phoenix produced $39 million in overpayments to about 5.2 per cent of the 300,000-strong public service between the end of April and September.

Stories of overpayments abound.

Public servants have received payday surprises of small amounts or thousands of dollars in overpayments. Some people have been paid two salaries, one regular salary and another, full acting salary when filling in jobs. Some retirees continued to receive paycheques after retiring. Others continued to get paid after taking a leave. And others received double severance payments.

And in some cases, the system can’t catch the error: the government won’t know about the overpayments unless employees report it.

It just gets worse........................

Federal government overpaid more than 20,000 public servants | Ottawa Citizen

That a boy, Justin! Talk about sending a boy on a man's job!

 

[mentalfloss]

Overpayments because of Harper's fukk up and soon to be recovered.

 

[JLM]

Overpayments because of Harper's fukk up and soon to be recovered.

Yeah, riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight! I may have been born at night but it wasn't last night!

 

[mentalfloss]

It was the night before?

 

[Scooby]

Should probably fund a public enquiry into why they are so incompetent, then sue the taxpayer for offending them.

 

[JLM]

It was the night before?

maybe the week before!

 

[tay]

That a boy, Justin! Talk about sending a boy on a man's job!

You do realize how long this has been a problem and which govt brought it in don't you. It was part of Harpers plan to get rid of those evil Unionized workers.

I'm not excusing the Trudeau Libs for not getting it fixed by now but the Harper Cons were warned it was a faulty system and that cutting the experienced workers would result in chaos but went ahead anyways......

Kathryn May, Ottawa Citizen, June 23 2015

Hundreds of public servants are waiting for pay because 550 overworked employees at the Conservative government’s showcase pay centre in Miramichi can’t keep up with the thousands of files federal departments are sending them in preparation for the rollout of a new pay system.

Sick leave at the pay centre is also on the rise, according to union officials. But Public Works and Government Services Canada, the government’s paymaster, insists there are no widespread problems.

Several public servants, speaking on condition on anonymity because they fear repercussions at work, told the Citizen their pay has been delayed by weeks. "We have taken a step backwards with this consolidated pay system," said one bureaucrat who has been waiting to be paid since early April.

Some argue the project got off on the wrong foot when Harper decided to put the long-promised pay centre in Miramichi as a political tradeoff for jobs that would disappear when he closed the gun registry.

The plan was divided into two major projects. The first was to consolidate all pay services for 46 departments in Miramichi and transfer the 184,000 pay accounts by December 2015.

The second project is Phoenix, a new off-the-shelf pay system that will be implemented in 102 departments with two major roll-outs: in October and December 2015.

Departments used to manage their own pay with in-house compensation advisers whom managers and employees could call if they ran into problems. There were about 2,500 pay advisers working in government – each typically overseeing about 200 clients – when Harper announced the pay centre was going to Miramichi.

Harper said the pay centre would employ 550 people – which meant about 1,700 experienced advisers in Ottawa and at the regional pay centres would have to find new jobs. They got first dibs on positions at the new pay centre but few wanted to move to Miramichi.

That meant most of the new advisers were green and recruited as students, or lived in Miramichi and had to be trained from scratch.

http://ajc-ajj.net/files/library/26_-_Press_Monitoring_June_22_to_June_29,_2015.pdf


Phoenix Falling: The federal payroll nightmare

Over 80,000 federal government workers have been without paycheques or faced major pay problems since February – thanks to the colossal failure of the new Phoenix payroll system implemented under the Harper Tories. There was already a lot of noise before the system was even implemented that there were going to be real problems, but the Liberals have only started to act in the past month. They say they are going to repair the system by October, but both union and government analysts are saying this won’t happen. What is it going to take for the Liberals to solve this problem? A union policy of “No pay, no work”?

 

[Curious Cdn]

It was the night before?

... and there were no creatures stirring?

... not even a mouse?

 

[JLM]

... and there were no creatures stirring?

... not even a mouse?

As most people are probably aware MF is not a direct descendant of Einstein!

 

[Cannuck]

That a boy, Justin! Talk about sending a boy on a man's job!

Only the simplest of simpletons would blame the CEO for a payroll glitch.

Overpayments because of Harper's fukk up and soon to be recovered.

Congratulations. You and JLM are two peas in a pod

 

[tay]

Price tag for fixing Phoenix pay system now tops original cost

Repair bill has risen to about $402M — more than $309.5M payroll implementation cost in the 1st place

Price tag for fixing Phoenix pay system now tops original cost - Ottawa - CBC News

 

[Murphy]

That is sad, but honestly, not unexpected. How many governments around the world are fiscally responsible?

 

[taxslave]

Price tag for fixing Phoenix pay system now tops original cost

Repair bill has risen to about $402M — more than $309.5M payroll implementation cost in the 1st place

Price tag for fixing Phoenix pay system now tops original cost - Ottawa - CBC News

Not sure why the taxpayer should be on the hook for any repair costs for something that never worked right in the first place. Should all be warranty.

 

[Murphy]

You'd think that, but govt contracts are not written with the best interests of that govt in mind.

Somewhere in the thousands of words in that document is a wordy area that says, paraphrased, any additional work and tech support will be paid for by the govt.

Govts aren't good at drawing up contracts

 

[JLM]

Not sure why the taxpayer should be on the hook for any repair costs for something that never worked right in the first place. Should all be warranty.

Who is in charge of the Federal Gov't.? Is it not either his PERSONAL responsibility to pay the bill or resign his position?

 

[Danbones]

Not sure why the taxpayer should be on the hook for any repair costs for something that never worked right in the first place. Should all be warranty.

Unfortunately there is no warranty on software, or the people too stupid to use it, in that sense.
The employees know what their pay should be, and it should be fired and jail ( do not collect 200 dollars) for everyone who has not promptly returned the extra money.

...and believe me, many guv employees are too stupid to use the software, and then there are those too corrupt not to take advantage of the situation.

 

[JamesBondo]

Overpayments because of Harper's fukk up and soon to be recovered.

Justin has been at the helm long enough to own the blame.

 

[TenPenny]

My solution is, the people in charge of selecting and implementing the system should not get paid until everyone else is sorted out. Why aren't they the ones going for 5 months without an actual paycheque?

 

[JLM]

...and believe me, many guv employees are too stupid to use the software, and then there are those too corrupt not to take advantage of the situation.

You could employ that rule of thumb across the entire population.