A Volusia County government payroll issue affected more Emergency Medical Services employees than originally thought, and multiple people were overpaid by more than $10,000, according to a new report.
Volusia County government officials reported in January that a payroll error had led to less than 30 EMTs being overpaid, including one employee who owed the county over $62,000. The county began arranging payment plans to recoup the money.
Officials then took a closer look at the issue.
County Manager George Recktenwald asked for a forensic financial analysis from the county’s chief financial officer and an independent review by the county’s internal auditor, county spokesman Michael Ryan stated via email.
The county’s forensic analysis looked at payroll calculations from May 2023 through January 2026 for about 336 employees in Emergency Medical Services, according to a report on the analysis.
The review found that 213 of those employees were underpaid and 55 were overpaid in that time frame. The rest had “no net pay impact.” The county overpaid four of those employees by more than $10,000. Twenty-eight employees were overpaid by $150 or less.
The county underpaid employees, too.
The report says that the county underpaid 27 people by between $1,000 and $2,000, according to the report. But some were underpaid by far less, such as dozens of employees owed $20 or less.
“The process to begin restitution for those who did not receive their entire pay and create individual payment plans for those who were overpaid will begin once the audit is complete,” Ryan stated. “We’re empathetic to all affected employees and are balancing that with our ongoing responsibility to ensure all taxpayer dollars are transparently accounted for and legally dispersed.”
What went wrong with Volusia County Emergency Medical Services payroll error?
County officials believe payroll errors came from “a discrepancy between software systems,” according to Ryan.
The software systems in question are the “Kronos Workforce Central timekeeping system (where employees clock in and out) and the CGI payroll system (which produces paychecks),” according to the report.
The county has put measures in place to keep it from happening again, Ryan stated.
County staff also made mistakes while making manual adjustments in the payroll system, according to the report.
Union officials representing Volusia County EMTs and paramedics did not respond to a request for comment.
In January, the International Association of EMTs and Paramedics Local R5-077 in Volusia County stated that the group was “working to ensure transparency, accountability and employee protection following recent errors in the County’s payroll system.”
The union also said that it had reached out to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Volusia County payroll errors affected 268 people, new report shows
Reporting by Sheldon Gardner, Daytona Beach News-Journal / The Daytona Beach News-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
