$1.7M in overtime prohibited, audit for 2014-2016 finds

Cuyahoga CLEVELAND —

County’s independent auditor has found that more than $1.7 million has been paid in overtime to salaried employees who were prohibited from receiving extra pay.

And despite the specific prohibition in the county’s personnel policies of paying overtime, department directors requested and approved it 33 percent of the time, the audit report said. Payroll staff overrode a control that had ensured exempt employees could not enter overtime on their time sheets.

While the audit examined 2014, 2015 and 2016, salaried employees have continued to receive overtime this year.

Overtime payments will cease in January, Chief Talent Officer Douglas Dykes said on Thursday. Dykes, who was hired in January 2016, learned about the overtime payments this summer.

He said any employees who received overtime would not be asked to reimburse the county.

The overpayments occurred under former County Executive Ed FitzGerald in 2014 and current executive Armond Budish in 2015 and 2016.

While salaried employees cannot receive overtime, which is time-and-a-half their hourly pay, they can receive exchange time if they work over 40 hours a week.

Employees can accrue up to 40 hours of exchange time, which is paid on an hourfor-hour basis when they need time off. It must be used within six months.

The audit also found that 63 salaried employees had accrued more than 40 hours of exchange time, and that total time was worth more than $300,000.

Dykes said about 50 employees had more than 40 hours of exchange time and several had worked on longterm projects and couldn’t use the hours.

While the 40-hour policy is now being followed, he decided not to penalize the employees.

“We could have taken one of two approaches and wiped out anything over 40 hours,” he said. “That is not how you become an employer of choice and there is no sense in pissing off over 50 employees. We worked out a schedule that gave them the opportunity to use that time over a period of time.”

The arrangement began this year and about 10 employees still have some extra exchange time, he said.

The initial scope of the internal audit was to examine the financial operations and general accounting of the human resources payroll division from January through December 2014, director of internal auditing Cory Swaisgood wrote in the report, which was released Sept. 29.

“DIA extended the audit period where necessary to recognize new processes and procedures in HR Payroll, and to further review significant risks identified,” he wrote.

‘DIA extended the audit period where necessary...’ Cory Swaisgood

Director of Internal Auditing