The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
PITTSBURGH, Pa. — Pittsburgh firefighter Ron Rompala said the city shorted him $900 — nearly half his biweekly earnings — in his Good Friday paycheck.
Rompala, 53, of Carrick said he had to postpone mechanical work to his vehicle necessary to pass a state inspection because of the $900 glitch. He said the city still owes him $300.
He is among hundreds of city employees who have had recurring problems with a payroll system that’s stirred controversy in the past year, city and union officials said Wednesday.
“It wasn’t life threatening, but at the same time, you work and you expect to get paid,” Rompala said. “When that money is not there, it runs from an inconvenience to something that could have a significant impact in a family’s life. It shouldn’t be that way.”
Union officials said hundreds of police and firefighters have experienced a significant increase in payroll problems in the past year.
Ralph Sicuro, president of International Association of Firefighters Local 1, said members have been shorted and overpaid. In some cases, he said, the city failed to have paychecks directly deposited into bank accounts.
In most cases, the city correctly adjusted the following paycheck, but Sicuro said firefighters are getting tired of the problem.
“I’m not talking 10 or 20 bucks,” he said. “When you’re shorted $700, that could be a mortgage payment, a car loan payment. These payroll problems also affect the pension offices. When they’re wrong, adjustments have to be made to the pension funds.”
David Baker, CEO of Human Capital Advisors Inc., a human resources consulting firm in Cranberry, said payroll problems are a “cardinal sin” by employers.
“If your employees don’t feel they’re getting paid what they’re due in a timely manner, their commitment, their loyalty and their faith in the organization is then tainted,” Baker said. He said employees could become lax in their jobs.
“If you believe that people don’t care about you, how much extra effort are you going to put into it?” he said. “The biggest area is turnover. People will tolerate that for some period of time, but eventually it will cause discord and disbelief in the organization, and people will leave.”
Pittsburgh has struggled for years to implement a financial management system for calculating payroll in-house. It pays a Minnesota company about $800,000 annually to handle the service.
City Controller Michael Lamb and Allegheny County Controller Chelsa Wagner have overseen the payroll project, which has racked up nearly $1 million in cost overruns. They blamed the overruns on resistance by Mayor Bill Peduto’s administration and former Mayor Luke Ravenstahl’s administration. Peduto blamed the controllers for lack of oversight.
The Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, Pittsburgh state financial oversight board, is withholding $10 million in gambling funds owed to the city until the payroll system is running, which is expected to happen by year’s end.
City Council on Tuesday approved hiring Independent Catalyst, a Downtown computer consulting firm, for $550,000 to implement the system.
“We’ve been fighting this fight for three years, and finally they’re moving forward,” Lamb said.
Peduto said the city is taking steps to avoid payroll glitches until the system is in place.
“The old system is not only antiquated, it has failures, and this is not the first time we’ve seen this with police and fire,” Peduto said. “What we’ve instituted through our budget office is internal audits on a periodic basis between now and the end of the year to try and catch these problems before they come full effect.”
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