A HSE employee received their monthly pay every fortnight for almost six months, resulting in an overpayment of more than € 40,500, an internal audit has found.
The details of the error are included in a review of payroll overpayments within the HSE West community healthcare organisation for Sligo/Leitrim and Donegal, published on Monday.
The audit states that between October 3rd 2006 and May 9th 2016, the employee worked in a cost centre which paid monthly. The individual was then rehired in a different cost centre in June of that year, which paid fortnightly.
However, the employee’s rate of pay was not changed, resulting in their total monthly wage being paid out every fortnight, the audit states.
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This discrepancy occurred for a six month period – between June 12th 2016 and December 11th 2016 – resulting in an overpayment of €40,535.33.
The internal audit found that the overpayment was highlighted on a “payroll exception report”, prior to each payroll run, which indicated that the gross pay for the employee “exceeded the maximum pay for the grade/wage type by 150 per cent”.
However “during all of this time” the error was not identified by management as part of their monthly budget controls, the audit states.
The employee is repaying € 100 per fortnight since January 23rd 2017, and payroll debtors reports indicated that the overpayment balance was reduced to € 31,235 by November 2018.
The total amount of outstanding overpayments in the Sligo/Leitrim and Donegal HSE care area was €260,709 on November 30th 2018, consisting of a total of 129 overpayment balances, the report states.
The audit examined a sample of 12 of those balances, representing 70 per cent of the total value of overpayments, and selected across mental health, primary care and social care services.
The report identified several ways in which the overpayments arose, including HR or payroll forms not being submitted, or submitted too late, pension related deductions (PRD) not being deducted from the employee’s pay and the incorrect PRSI class rates being applied.
The audit also found that the recoupment of overpayments is not being effectively managed. Currently five out of 12 of the sample are not being recouped so there is a risk that they may be non-recoverable, the report said.
