Surprise payout for council staff
Almost 2000 Hamilton City Council staff will get a share of a surprise $560,000 boost to their pay packets, after it was revealed they had been underpaid.
The council is the latest big business moving to rectify errors in Holiday Act payments – discovered and confirmed following an audit of payroll processes by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.
The audit was part of a national compliance review following the discovery that some organisations – including the New Zealand Police, Cadbury NZ and MBIE itself – had incorrectly applied the complex Holidays Act legislation.
The error means around 1995 current and former council employees hired between August 21, 2012 and August 18, 2019 will receive an additional holiday payment. The amount each person receives will be different, but the total amount owed is $560,606.30.
The error applied where there were variable hours and payments as part of an employee’s regular take-home pay, where they cashed-up a portion of their annual leave, or if they left partway through the year before further entitlement to annual leave had arisen.
The council’s underpayment to staff is not the biggest such blunder that has been
The council is the latest big business moving to rectify errors in Holiday Act payments.
detected. NZ Police identified a $39 million underpayment affecting approximately 15,000 employees.
Corporate general manager David Bryant said he was pleased the audit had confirmed all the council’s other core payroll practices were fully compliant. The focus now was contacting those people affected to rectify the issue as quickly as possible.
Current affected employees were notified on Monday. Former employees, whose contact information the council still holds, are also being contacted this week.
There are around 1400 former employees owed money that the council currently has no contact information for. Numerous avenues are being used to contact those people, including past contact details and social media.
‘‘If people suspect they are owed something, or perhaps have a friend who might be, the easiest way to check is to visit hamilton.govt.nz/holidaypay and complete a really easy form,’’ Bryant said. ‘‘Or you could phone 07 838 6699 and we’ll help you sort it out.’’