Town payrolls found to have incorrect health deductions

SHANDAKEN, N.Y. » The Town Board has agreed to change payroll procedures after a state comptroller’s audit found health insurance deductions failed to adhere to town policy and union contracts.

The audit found quite a few employee paychecks were incorrectly calculated during the audit review period of Jan. 1, 2016, through October 31, 2017.

“Town officials overpaid health insurance buyout incentives to two employees by more than $4,900 and underpaid incentives to two employees by $1,680 during the audit period,” auditors wrote.

“We reviewed payroll records for December 2016 with 68 employees whose gross pay totaled $169,351 and September 2017 with 68 employees whose gross pay totaled $146,500,” they wrote. “Eight employees — four in each month — were not paid the correct amounts. Specifically, three employees were over-

paid by a combined total of $585 and five employees were underpaid by a combined total of $689.”

The audit also found that town officials did not withhold employee contributions for health insurance coverage, with 11 employees undercharged by more than $4,700 and seven employees overcharged by $724.

Auditors added that a former employee who retired in 2017 received, used and was paid for leave time to which she was not entitled and valued at $1,842.

The report recommends that the town ask employees who were overpaid to return the money and reimburse those employees who were underpaid. However, Supervisor Robert Stanley in a telephone interview said neither suggestion is going to happen.

“The ones that were overcharged were pretty minimal and we spoke to each of those employees and they said to do it for $2 or $3 per pay check was ridiculous,” he said. “The one we were very grateful for was one of the new employees that was due (about $1,000) and she said she was happy with what she was getting and didn’t have a qualm with it.”

Town officials in a formal response to the report wrote that they plan to schedule regular internal audit and develop better policy on how changes in health insurance coverage is handled by bookkeepers.

“Upon notification by the (state) examiner the Town Board adopted a resolution in December of 2017...to clearly state that future healthcare buyback is strictly calculated based solely off of the single plan rate,” board members wrote.