Employees’ Usage of Leave Hours to Purchase Pension TimeMIAMI BEACH
BUDGET AND PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT
Internal Audit Division INTERNAL AUDIT REPORT
TO:
VIA:
FROM:
DATE:
AUDIT:
PERIOD:
Jorge M. Gonzalez, City Manager ~
Kathie G. Brooks, Budget and P~rf·r;?~;mpe Improvement Director -1}::Y
James J. Sutter, Internal Auditor ·~ ·
;
April 21, 2008
Employees' Usage of Leave Hours to Purchase Pension Time
January 1, 2006 through December 31, 2007
This report is a byproduct of our regularly scheduled payroll processing audit. This area was
selected for audit after initial testing revealed several material inaccuracies as to the calculation or
omission of charging leave hours adjustments for purchasing pension time and 401 migrations into
the City's pension plan. Therefore we tested all transactions occurring between 01/01/06 and
12/31/07 whereby City employees used leave hours to purchase pension time.
INTRODUCTION
The City Commission ratified Ordinance Number 2006-3504 on 03/08/06 to reform the pension
system. Among other items, it merged the general and unclassified retirement systems,
implemented the 2003-2006 collective bargaining agreement between the City and the
Communications Workers of America and amended provisions of the retirement plan applicable to
non-bargaining unit and unclassified employees.
In accordance with Florida Statute section 112.65, it also allowed vested employees the opportunity
to purchase up to two years of creditable service under the pension plan. Similarly, City employees
participating in the 401A plan were able to migrate into the pension plan. Acceptable payment
methods for these two benefits included personal check, 401A and/or 457 plan rollovers, accrued
sick and annual leave, etc.
Accrued sick leave may be used at a rate of two hours of accrued sick leave for the value of each
hour used toward the purchase, provided that the participating employee retains at least 120 hours
of accrued sick leave after the purchase. Meanwhile, annual leave may be used at the rate of one
hour of accrued annual leave for the value of each hour used toward purchase.
Ordinance Number 2006-3530 was subsequently adopted on 09/21/06 to amend Ordinance Number
2006-3504 as to the definition of earnings, death benefits after retirement, the early retirement
incentive program, etc. It also included an amendment of section 4.05 which discussed the
purchase of credited service by certain employees who previously had creditable service under the
Classified Plan. This purchase of probationary time or the first six months of classified employees'
tenure is necessary as these individuals pay into Social Security and are not part of the City's
Pension System during this period (not including Fraternal Order of Police and International
Association of Fire Fighters unions covered employees, who contribute to Deferred Compensation
in lieu of Social Security). At the end of their probationary period, the applicable classified employee
may or may not be retained. Retained employees must participate in one of the City's retirement
programs and no longer remit Social Security.
VVe ore commilted /o providing c.•xcellent public service ond solely to o/1 who live, worl:, one/ piO)i in our vibron/, l!opicol, historic communily'·
Internal Audit Report
Employees' Usage of Leave Hours to Purchase Pension Time
April 21, 2008
When able, these now permanent employees may elect to use personal check, sick and annual
leave, etc. to purchase their probationary period and have those months count as creditable service
toward their pension. However, sick and annual leave may both be used at the rate of one hour of
accrued time for the value of each hour used toward purchase thereby differing from the
aforementioned two year and 401 migration pension buy back plans.
OVERALL OPINION
The Pension Office, Finance's Accounts Payable Section and the Human Resources'
Compensation Division worked diligently and expeditiously to implement the desired pension
reforms and to answer employee questions. Somewhere in their haste, deficiencies occurred in
interdepartmental communication and implementation resulting in incorrect or omitted leave time
deductions. The following shortcomings were noted during testing:
• Although tested employees were properly granted additional pension time after City checks
were issued to the Pension Office, employee leave balances were not reduced accordingly
by a total of $225,716.95. The Compensation Division has since prepared leave
adjustments for all identified active employees recovering $202,057.71 for the City. The
$23,659.24 balance has not been collected as the affected employees no longer work for
the City.
• Breakdowns in the overall process by which pension time is purchased with leave hours
helped allow inaccurate or omitted leave transfers to go undetected.
• Payroll codes were not consistently and exclusively used for leave transactions to reduce
the possibility offuture confusion/disagreements and making mistakes, as well as hindering
the audit trail.
PURPOSE
To determine the efficiency and effectiveness of the overall leave transfer process, were leave hours
properly deducted from employees' balances in accordance with the amount of pension time
granted, were City issued checks correctly prepared for all tested employees, and were transactions
accurately recorded in the City's Financial System.
SCOPE
1. Confirm that tested employees' leave hours were deducted in accordance with the amount
of pension time granted by the Pension Office.
2. Confirm that the designated process works properly and has the necessary safeguards and
controls to help ensure that tested transactions are accurately completed.
3. Confirm that tested transactions were properly recorded in the City's Financial System.
4. Confirm that tested files and records are adequately secured, neatly organized and properly
maintained.
5. Confirm that the Finance Department issued checks to the Pension Office in the correct
amount for all tested employees.
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Internal Audit Report
Employees' Usage of Leave Hours to Purchase Pension Time
April 21, 2008
FINDINGS, RECOMMENDATIONS AND MANAGEMENT RESPONSES
1. Finding: Incorrect or Omitted Leave Hour Deductions
Among other payment methods, City employees were given the opportunity to use accrued
leave time (sick and vacation hours) to purchase pension time for the 401 migration,
probationary time and up to two years for similar work experience. This area was selected
for testing because of the large volume of recent transactions and the relatively high dollar
amounts, as well as reported problems associated with the deducting of an employee's
leave hours totaling $14,391.10 more than one year after submittal only because of his
insistence.
The discovery of other incorrect material leave adjustments resulted in the sample size being
increased to include all applicable transactions occurring between 01/01/06 and 12/31/07.
Any believed inaccurate or omitted transactions were collected and forwarded to the Human
Resources Department's Compensation Division and/or Pension Office. Sufficient time was
granted to review their records and disprove any identified transactions. Several meetings
were held to discuss their findings and to determine where the breakdowns were occurring.
As a result, all parties agree that the leave hours listed below and in Exhibit A totaling
$225,716.95 were not properly deducted prior to Internal Audit's testing and subsequent
notification. Corresponding payroll leave adjustments were prepared shortly thereafter to
reimburse the City for amounts already paid to the Pension Office. A total of $202,057.71
was recovered but the $23,659.24 balance is still outstanding because the individuals have
since left the City's employment.
Meanwhile, the table below shows the exceptions found for incorrect or omitted leave
deductions by category, both in dollars and number of employees, in relation to the total
population size tested:
Dollar Amounts Number of Emplo}'ees
Exceptions Total Exceptions Total
Category Found Population % Found Population %
401 Migration $38,132.58 $221,416.05 17.22% 8 36 22.22%
Two Year
Buy Back $171,853.09 $1,405,641.70 12.23% 23 160 14.38%
Probationary
Time $15,731.28 $263,469.07 5.97% 4 86 4.65%
Total $225,716.95 $1,890,526.82 11.94% 35 282 12.41%
The root cause of the incorrect leave adjustments was found to be in the following order
from most to least common:
a. the departmental payroll coordinators unaware that the Compensation Division had
entered leave adjustments, intentionally zeroed them out in Quick Entry believing
most likely that they had inadvertently made an incorrect entry (15/35 ::: 42.86% ),
b. employees' leave transfer contracts were apparently not received by the
Compensation Division which except for in two instances could not be disproved by
Internal Audit (13/35 = 37.14%),
Page 3 of 7
Internal Audit Report
Employees' Usage of Leave Hours to Purchase Pension Time
April 21 , 2008
c. the Compensation Division incorrectly entered the payroll leave adjustment by
adding leave hours rather than subtracting them, not halving sick hours, etc. (6/35 =
17.14%),
d. the Pension Office provided incorrect calculations on the Request for Direct
Payment and/or Leave Request Transfer forms (1/35 = 2.86%).
Finally, review of employee identification number 12180's two year buy back found that he
was incorrectly credited with two years of pension time when he only purchased 1. 76 years.
The Pension Office quickly corrected the error and said that it most likely would have been
caught during final retirement calculations as all figures are thoroughly reviewed at that time.
Recommendations:
The implementation of the following recommendations should help prevent the identified root
causes from reoccurring:
a. The Compensation Division should enter the leave adjustment with a prior date not
occurring in the pay period to prevent departmental payroll coordinators from
making future unauthorized changes. This practice has already been adopted by
the Compensation Division.
b. The overall leave transfer process should be amended as discussed further in
finding 2.
c. Human Resources Department management should routinely review leave
adjustments completed to help ensure their accuracy. The Compensation Division
has now implemented this practice to help ensure that only correct payroll
adjustments are processed.
d. Pension Office management should review and approve all calculations prior to the
employee leaving the City's employment to help correct any identified errors prior to
receiving their leave settlement.
e. Collection efforts for the remaining balances due from the separated employees
should attempted.
Management Responses:
The Finance Department will pursue the collection of these outstanding monies.
The Human Resources Department has already implemented the applicable
recommendations as noted above, and coupled with the newly defined payment process
listed in finding #2, should help reduce the possibility of future errors.
The Pension Office agrees with the finding and recommendation listed above.
2. Finding: Process Deficiencies
Initially, the Pension Office would prepare the employees signed transfer contract and the
Request for Direct Payment (D.P.). The transfer contract would be sent by interoffice mail to
the Compensation Division while the D.P. was sent simultaneously to the Finance
Department's Accounts Payable Section. Known problems occurred as Accounts Payable
Section received this mail and accurately prepared City checks but the Compensation
Division claimed that they did not always receive this documentation. Internal Audit's efforts
to substantiate this claim were unsuccessful except for two City employees (identification
numbers 15906 and 17597).
Consequently, internal reviews were conducted to determine which employees did not have
Page 4 of 7
Internal Audit Report
Employees' Usage of Leave Hours to Purchase Pension Time
April 21 , 2008
their leave balances properly reduced. Corresponding payroll adjustments were made and
the process was changed. Late summer 2007, the Pension Office began scanning and e-
mailing the transfer contract to six designated Human Resources Department employees to
help ensure receipt and proper processing. Furthermore, the Accounts Payable Section
supervisor brings a copy to a Human Resources Department employee, independent of the
Compensation Division, before processing. These procedures are inefficient as there is a
duplication of work and still three leave adjustments tested during this time period were not
properly prepared.
Finally, the Finance Department did not ensure that the employee's leave balance was
properly reduced before issuing the City check. They also commingled all employees
participating in the tested pension buy back plans into one vendor account numbered
000410 thereby making it difficult to distinguish between the three.
Recommendations:
The process by which pension time is purchased with leave hours has evolved over the two
year sampled period. Although it has improved as 24/35 or 68.57% of the identified
inaccurate transactions occurred during the 2006 calendar year, there is still room for
improvement. Therefore, the following processes are recommended to help ensure that
future transactions are properly completed:
• The Pension Office completes the transfer hours' contract in accordance with the
employee's request and prepares an invoice to the City for the amount due.
• The contract with invoice should be forward to the Compensation Division's Human
Resources Administrator I for assignment to one of her staff.
• The corresponding leave adjustment should be timely completed by the assigned
employee. A print screen of the leave adjustment should be generated and attached
to the documentation.
• The Compensation Division's Human Resources Administrator I should review the
documentation to ensure that the transfer was done and sign off on the invoice.
• The Compensation Division's Human Resources Administrator I should forward the
documentation and invoice to either the Human Resources Director or Assistant
Director for approval.
• The invoice with the supporting documentation attached should be forwarded to the
Finance Department's Accounts Payable Section for processing.
• Documentation should be reviewed by Finance for approvals to ensure that the
transfer has been made. A check payable to the City of Miami Beach General
Employees Retirement System should be prepared in the next batch of processed
checks.
• The issued check should then be delivered to the Pension Office so that the
matching pension time can be added to the employee's record.
Management Responses:
The Human Resources and Finance Departments are agreeable to this amended process
formulated at our exit conference. In addition the Finance Department believes that the new
work flow will eliminate the disconnect that existed between the issuing of the check and the
deduction of the hours.
The Pension Office will adhere to this newly created process.
Page 5 of 7
Internal Audit Report
Employees' Usage of Leave Hours to Purchase Pension Time
April 21, 2008
3. Finding: Payroll Codes or Benldeds
Ben/deds (benefit deductions) are line items that appear on employees' paychecks that
show either the inflow or outflow of monies. Testing showed that the leave hours deducted
by the Compensation Division for the three pension buy back plans were charged to either
s2bb (sick time I 2 year buyback) or sicb (adjustment to sick leave bank) for sick hours and
v2bb (vacation time I 2 year buyback) or vacb (adjustment to vacation leave bank) for
vacation hours. However, consistency was found to be lacking. For example, instances
were noted whereby sick hours used in the 401 migration were charged to s2bb, other times
to sicb and still others where they were initially charged to sicb and then later converted to
s2bb through payroll adjustments. Additional payroll adjustments were also found to have
used these aforementioned ben/deds for such unrelated reasons as United Way
contributions, donated time, planning day payouts, etc.
Recommendations:
Separate ben/deds should have been created and used exclusively for each of the three
pension buy backs tested to help avoid possible confusion/disagreements, reduce the
likelihood of making mistakes and improve the audit trail.
Management Responses:
Ben/ded codes s2bb and v2bb are now being used exclusively for the 2 year buy back, as
they affect the employee's leave payout at time of separation. Sicb and vacb are being used
for any other type of adjustment to the respective leave banks, as they do not affect the
employee's leave payout at the time of separation.
Human Resources' management is reviewing the use of these ben/ded codes every pay
period.
EXIT CONFERENCE
An exit conference was held on March 20, 2008 in the Office of Budget and Performance
Improvement. Participants included Ramiro lnguanzo (Human Resources Director), Kristin Tigner
(Assistant Director of Human Resources), Georgie Eckert (Assistant Finance Director) and James
Sutter (Internal Auditor). All parties were in agreement as to the contents of this report.
Management responses were solicited and included in our report.
JJS:MC:mc
F:\obpi\$AUD\DOC07-08\REPORTS-DRAFT\PENSION LEAVE TIME.doc
(audit performed by Mark Coolidge, Senior Auditor)
cc: Ramiro lnguanzo, Human Resources Director
Patricia Walker, Chief Financial Officer
Rick Rivera, Pension Administrator
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Internal Audit Report
Employees' Usage of Leave Hours to Purchase Pension Time
April 21 , 2008
EXHIBIT A-LISTING OF INCORRECT OR OMITTED PENSION LEAVE DEDUCTIONS BY ROOT CAUSE
REASON FOR DIRECT CMB CORRECTED
ID LEAVE HOURS PAYMENT DOLLARS CORRECTED PAY PERIOD
NUMBER TRANSFERRED DATE OWED AMOUNT DATE
PAYROLL COORDINATORS' ADJUSTMENTS:
14134 401 MIGRATION 09/19/06 $23,112.53 $23,112.53 02/03/08
15168 401 MIGRATION 12/18/06 $2,713.06 $2,713.06 02/03/08
17008 PROBATIONARY 11/15/06 $2,789.22 $2,789.22 02/17/08
10731 PROBATIONARY 01/11/07 $869.15 $0.00 N/A *
14243 PROBATIONARY 07111/07 $7,924.09 $7,924.09 02/17/08
16509 TWO YEAR 09/06/06 $4,185.91 $4,185.91 02/03/08
16694 TWO YEAR 03/13/07 $2,656.23 $2,656.23 03/02/08
17306 TWO YEAR 03/13/07 $2,116.01 $0.00 N/A *
15846 TWO YEAR 12/11/06 $6,761.92 $6,761.92 02/03/08
16429 TWO YEAR 01/22/07 $5,645.48 $5,645.48 02/17/08
12492 TWO YEAR 04/18/07 $10,524.34 $10,524.34 02/03/08
14160 TWO YEAR 08/28/06 $18,616.52 $18,616.52 02/03/08
13145 TWO YEAR 05/15/06 $7,935.08 $7,935.08 02/03/08
SUBTOTAL $95,849.54 $92,864.38
LEAVE TRANSFER CONTRACTS NOT RECEIVED:
15195 401 MIGRATION 11/02/06 $4,931.04 $4,931.04 03/02/08
15854 401 MIGRATION 11/02/06 $2,030.02 $2,030.02 02/17/08
17713 401 MIGRATION 06/26/06 $685.32 $685.32 02/17/08
17597 401 MIGRATION 06/21/06 $1,990.17 $1,990.17 02/03/08
15572 401 MIGRATION 11/02/06 $1,640.99 $1,640.99 02/03/08
15107 TWO YEAR 04/27/07 $9,728.13 $9,728.13 02/03/08
13915 TWO YEAR 10/11/07 $5,742.52 $5,742.52 02/17/08
15906 TWO YEAR 03/15/07 $9,038.81 $9,038.81 02/03/08
16306 TWO YEAR 10/27/06 $6,767.66 $6,767.66 02/03/08
10909 TWO YEAR 12/10/07 $8,796.26 $8,796.26 02/03/08
15051 TWO YEAR 07/27/06 $1,740.47 $1,740.47 02/03/08
13947 TWO YEAR 05/19/06 $18,061.52 $0.00 N/A *
16780 TWO YEAR 10/11/07 $5,647.25 $5,647.25 02/17/08
14287 TWO YEAR 08/03/06 $3,979.27 $3,979.27 02/03/08
16994 TWO YEAR 05/19/06 $18,057.21 $18,057.21 02/03/08
SUBTOTAL $98,836.64 $80,775.12
INCORRECT LEAVE ADJUSTMENTS:
18090 401 MIGRATION 10/25/06 $1,029.45 $0.00 N/A *
15297 PROBATIONARY 07111/06 $4,148.82 $4,148.82 02/17/08
15297 TWO YEAR 08/24/06 $5,430.28 $5,430.28 02/17/08
16462 TWO YEAR 12/11/06 $10,505.04 $10,505.04 02/03/08
15818 TWO YEAR 10/02/06 $3,197.27 $3,197.27 02/03/08
15841 TWO YEAR 11/20/06 $5,136.80 $5,136.80 03/02/08
SUBTOTAL $29,447.66 $28,418.21
PENSION OFFICE MISCALCULATIONS:
11551 TWO YEAR 05/02/06 $1,583.11 $0.00 N/A *
SUBTOTAL $1,583.11 $0.00
GRAND TOTAL $225,716.95 $202,057.71
* These monies appear to be uncollectible since the employees left the City's employment prior to identifying the
exception's existence.
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