Millions spent chasing overpayments

By Anna Caldwell    

A 26-strong squad will be hired to track down more than $38 million in wages overpaid to Queensland Health staff during the payroll debacle.
In the latest twist in the embarrassing bungle, The Courier-Mail can reveal taxpayers will fork out more than $1 million to pay the team of specialists dedicated solely to finding overpaid workers and recouping the money from them.
The new “overpayments unit” will add to the spiralling cost of fixing the QH payroll saga, now in its seventh month.
The failed payroll system is going to cost millions to fix – or possibly even replace – and the State Government has already written off $1 million in overpayments not worth chasing because they are too small.
In one of the worst problems to hit the Bligh Government, the $40 million QH payroll system has failed to pay tens of thousands of staff since it was launched on March 14.
Even this week, 27 staff went without pay.
Taxpayers will spend $1 million just to staff the overpayments unit.
More money will be needed to resource the team.
The Queensland Nurses Union said last night it was critical that stressed workers were not now unfairly hounded by the Government to repay money quickly.
Staff have already struggled with inaccurate tax returns, mortgage default fees and lost leave.
This is the first time the volume of overpayments has been revealed.
Of the money the department needs to claw back, $9 million was accidentally doled out to staff as cash advances when QH began writing ad hoc cheques to workers who claimed they had not been paid properly.
It is believed many of the other overpayments were made because the payroll system couldn’t handle people changing shifts or taking days off at the last minute.
One health professional will have to pay back $41,000.
In total, more than 81,000 overpayments have been made – about 6 per cent of all pays made under the new system.
In an ironic twist, the new payroll system was fast-tracked because the old system was chronically overpaying staff, to the tune of a staggering $27 million over five years.
QH deputy director-general Michael Walsh said the Government had always made it clear that overpayments would be recovered after consultation with affected staff.
“That is the responsible position to take with taxpayers’ money,” he said.
But in an effort to appease angry workers, Health Minister Paul Lucas promised in July that workers overpaid less than $200 could keep the money.
Mr Walsh said no decision had been made about the deadlines for repayments of larger amounts, and that individuals would be consulted along with the unions.
Queensland Nurses Union secretary Gay Hawksworth said the last thing workers needed was to be chased by the Government “with a big stick”.
“They’ve been through enough trauma already – now to have the debt collectors come after them will be incredibly distressing after spending seven months wondering if what they got was right,” Ms Hawksworth said.
Mr Walsh said individual payment arrangements would be negotiated with staff.
The Government still hasn’t released a key report by Ernst & Young that will ultimately decide whether the state keeps the $40 million payroll lemon.

A bungle from day one

• 19 October Queensland Health’s director of payroll, Alan McGraw, resigns. In his resignation letter Mr McGraw made a damning indictment of the efforts to fix the system.
• 20 September Six months after crisis began, 50 staff not paid and 11,500 pay corrections still to be processed.
• 15 July Hundreds of nurses rally outside State Parliament in payroll protest.
• 13 July Paul Lucas announces anyone overpaid less than $200 can keep it.
• 7 July Second Auditor-General’s report finds State Government’s financial disaster resilience – the ability to continue paying people in the face of a complete system failure – is lacking, with insufficient safety nets in place.
• 29 June A damning Auditor-General’s report blames payroll crisis on an abject “failure of governance”.
• 29 June Two of Queensland Health’s most senior bureaucrats are sacked over the payroll crisis.
• 02 July Minister for Public Works Robert Schwarten goes missing as pay crisis worsens.
• 22 May Payroll staff found to be reporting record sick days because of stress.
• 20 May Payroll services director Janette Jones moved out of role.
• 23 April Security guards hired to protect payroll staff.
• 14 March Queensland Health payroll goes live, failing to pay thousands of staff.

Article from The Courier Mail, October 23, 2010.