After Collins’ Failed Part-Time Idea Cost County $450,000, Administration Made More Than $25,000 in Overpayments and $14,000 in Underpayments
Review Uncovers Nearly All RPT Employees Paid for Lunches on Holidays
ERIE COUNTY, NY—Today, Erie County Comptroller Mark Poloncarz issued a report examining the payments made to the County’s regular part-time (“RPT”) employees by the Erie County Department of Personnel (“Personnel”) as a result of a lawsuit and subsequent agreement (the “Agreement”) between the Collins administration and Civil Service Employees Association Local 815, the County’s white collar union.
The Agreement compensated RPT employees for the difference in paid leave time they would have received as a full-time employee, retroactive to their initial start date. Types of paid leave included vacation, sick, holiday, summer hours, personal leave and an additional 15 minutes of lunch time.
When reviewing the payouts made by Personnel, auditors found that nearly every affected employee was compensated for lost lunch time on Holidays, resulting in more than $25,000 in overpayments. Coupled with approximately $14,000 in underpayments for vacation, sick, holiday, summer hours and personal leave time, auditors discovered the County gave RPT employees more than $11,000 above what they were owed, all at the taxpayers’ expense.
“After Collins’ failed part-time idea cost the County approximately $450,000 in back pay, his administration’s miscalculations appear to have cost the County more than $25,000 in overpayments while many employees were underpaid by approximately $14,000,” said Poloncarz. “Maybe the reason the county executive can’t find enough money in the budget for parks workers, librarians or rodent control officers is because the County has been wasting it on things like incorrectly paying employees for lunch time on Holidays.”
Poloncarz also noted that because many of the payments to RPT employees were calculated at their current wage rates, even though much of the time earned was before 2011 at a lower wage rate, they resulted in higher cash-out awards than would have been earned at the time.
Poloncarz added, “In other words, the County is paying more today to compensate RPT employees than it would have if the employees had been classified as full-time from the start. Between this, the overpayments and the unknown amount of money the Collins administration spent on high-priced lawyers to defend this lawsuit, the Collins administration wasted tens of thousands, and possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars on a failed policy of not following the law, tax-dollars that could have been used elsewhere.”
“These overpayments were identified by the same auditors the county executive deleted from the budget and who were only restored through an efficiency grant from the Erie County Fiscal Stability Authority. Without the ECFSA’s intervention and restoration of these auditors, it is likely these improper payments would never have been identified. This quick review shows the value a strong audit staff brings to the County: they identify the waste, fraud and abuse that inevitably exist in Erie County government.”
Overpaid employees will have these monies recovered as per Erie County Policy, while underpaid employees will be compensated during future pay periods.
For a copy of the report, please visit the Comptroller’s website at www.erie.gov/comptroller or click here.