County reports a glitch in paying its employees

Although Washtenaw had few problems with Y2K some staff had erroneous payouts, no paychecks

Saturday, January 15, 2000

By CHONG W. PYEN, NEWS STAFF REPORTER

Washtenaw County government has survived the Y2K scare, but minor computer glitches caused some paychecks issued with incorrect amounts last week.

The New Year's first biweekly payday was Jan. 7, with checks issued under a new system by the firm of J.D. Edwards. The conversion from the old MSA system had been made in conjunction with precautions to deal with any Y2K problems.

But in many cases, the check amounts were incorrect by a few dollars to a couple of hundred dollars. A dozen of the 1,300 employees didn't get checks at all, and they were issued exception checks immediately, according to County Administrator Robert E. Guenzel.

"Everyone got paid," he said.

Guenzel said most of the errors were minor, such as contractual pay raises of 11/2 percent and United Way deductions not reflected.

"We bought the new financial package, and it's just a much better system, but a fairly new system," said Guenzel. "The vendor was somewhat late in terms of perfecting the program, and some adjustments had not been picked up.

"We've been working around the clock to make sure the Jan. 21 paychecks are accurate," he said. "We anticipate good, clean payroll next week, making some retroactive payments, corrections and deductions."

Every two weeks, the county issues paychecks totaling $2 million, according to Peter Ballios, finance director.

He said checks other than payroll, including Friend of the Court child support, retirement benefits and welfare checks, were processed without a hitch.

"The most important thing is that everybody got paid. In my 20 years here, we've never missed payroll. That would have been a major problem," Ballios said.

Source: Michigan Live, coverage by the Ann Arbor News; Ann Arbor, Michigan

http://aa.mlive.com/news/index.ssf?/news/stories/20000114wcpayroll.frm

-- Lee Maloney (leemaloney@hotmail.com), January 18, 2000