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Consultant raps city on payroll audit data [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette](Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Sept. 17--A consultant for Pittsburgh's state-appointed financial oversight body said Tuesday that the city has failed to provide information his firm needs to complete an audit of the city's payroll system. The Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority hired Gleason & Associates, a Pittsburgh accounting and consulting firm, in June for up to $50,000 to look into the payroll system after the City Controller's Office received an email from Chuck Half, a former city project manager, alleging that payroll processing errors could be costing the city as much as $780,000 a year, based on his estimates. William Krieger, an accountant for the firm, told the ICA board Tuesday that the audit was still incomplete because the city has failed to supply "detailed payroll information" that would allow him to determine whether Mr. Half is correct and whether the errors are still occurring. "There are very significant differences in perspective ... regarding these alleged errors," Mr. Krieger said, noting that the city administration contends there are no errors, that they are "simple human errors" or have been fixed. Mr. Krieger said it's apparent some errors have occurred in the past, especially for employees subject to collective-bargaining agreements, which set varying pay rates for regular time, overtime and -- in the case of police, for example -- special detail pay. "What isn't clear is, are these errors still occurring?" Mr. Krieger said. "At this point in our work, we have noted no irregularities." Mr. Krieger called the city's current payroll system "decentralized and manual," noting that it uses 40 "timekeepers," or clerks, who work in various city departments processing information from time slips and entering the information into a system managed by Ceridian, the company that issues paychecks. That increases the potential for mistakes and "irregularities," he said, noting that the review thus far has found a substantial number of adjustments and corrections in each pay period. City finance director Paul Leger couldn't say why the auditors have not received information but offered to be Mr. Krieger's point of contact for all requests. Mayor Bill Peduto, who took office in January, has clashed with the ICA on the payroll issue and called for his own audit of the system, which he has described as overbudget, behind schedule and barely functional. In response, the ICA, which approves Pittsburgh's budget every year, is withholding about $2.8 million in state gaming money from the city. The payroll module is part of a joint city-county enterprise resource planning system -- a computerized comprehensive financial-management system -- that was supposed to be finished last year. Mr. Leger said the city is reviewing proposals for consultants who will analyze what system will work best, given the complexities of managing time for workers covered by collective-bargaining agreements, and help the city implement it. "It is more complex than any place in the private sector," he said, adding that the city uses features from the JD Edwards ERP system, including for the general ledger. ICA chief Henry Sciortino said the authority has put more than $7.5 million into the financial management system and added that Mr. Peduto's administration has "every right" to explore a different payroll system, although he questioned how it would afford it. "The JD Edwards system is being used by lots of other cities with collective-bargaining agreements as complex as Pittsburgh's," Mr. Sciortino said. Robert Zullo: [email protected], 412-263-3909 or on Twitter @rczullo. ___ (c)2014 the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Visit the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at www.post-gazette.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |