Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Several employees of the Health Department were underpaid during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Territorial Audit Office has called on DoH to maintain complete and “accurate employees[‘] pays and their rates.”

This is one of the issues listed under “Other Matters” that was identified by TAO during its Performance Audit report of the more than $14 million in federal CARES Act funding awarded to DoH during the COVID pandemic.

Part seven of the Samoa News report on the DoH audit, looks at: “Maintaining of Complete and Accurate Employee[‘] Pays and their Rates” payroll issue identified under the “Other Matters” section of the report.

TAO explained that changing pay rates is typically not performed by the department payroll unit and is not compatible with their primary responsibility of processing employee pays. Instead the ASG’s Human Resource Department can access to change rates and only allowing the Treasury Payroll team to access the payroll process.

TAO audit review identified:

•           three employees with incorrect pay amounts resulting in underpayments of $394.

•           One employee’s overtime rate was incorrectly computed — hourly rate was $11.33 — and overtime should be $17, instead the overtime was paid at $17.11.

•           One employee who worked on a holiday — whose hourly rate was $5.21 — was paid at $11.07 when it should have been paid at $10.42 (or $5.21 × 2).

Furthermore, the audit reveals inconsistencies in payroll calculations. “Although reasonable explanations may exist for the inconsistencies, we were unable to locate complete payroll reconciliations or reconcile back to payroll reports within the time frame of the audit,” said TAO.

The audit identified that payroll reconciliations are not prepared and in place. “Payroll reconciliation is one way to check that employees are being paid correctly and that any last minutes changes are accounted for,” the auditors said.

And in an “expanded review outside of the sample,” TAO declared that, “the audit identified seventeen (17) additional employees with the same issue resulting in $3,696 in underpayments.”

According to the auditors, overpayments were noted but considered immaterial.

TAO points out that this finding is important because the earning and charge for leave entitlements are based on complete and accurate records of each employee’ hours worked. Therefore an accurate record of employee works shall be retained and provide as the basis for pay, leave and other benefits.

“In an automated environment, system edits and other tests can assist the department in the review and verification that time is accurate and allowable,” said TAO.

Additionally, employees shall be paid according to human resource’ policies and regulations. Incorrect calculation can cause problems and concerns with employees. “The only way the department can determine that it is completely salary compliant is to carry out a regular or detailed payroll review,” the auditors said.

TAO recommended updating the current processes and procedures to include more robust compensating controls to timely detect and correct any instances of incorrect employee pay rates. Furthermore, the department should review payroll procedures to ensure regulations and pay practices are consistent and compliant.

In its response, DoH management claimed it has “no control over the listed finding” as payroll is calculated by the Department of Treasury's payroll division.

DoH suggested that it’s best to address the Department of Treasury payroll division as well as the Department of Human Resources with these inconsistencies.

“Salary adjustments and the rollback of salaries from the change of administration must be a factor but DOH has no control over the listed finding. DOH Payroll is only responsible for submitting timesheets of hours worked by the employees,” DoH said.

Furthermore, ASG and all its payroll control is being monitored by the Department of Treasury Payroll division, while the salary adjustment is handled by the Department of Human Resources.

TAO auditors — issued a reply — saying that: “Timely follow up shall be made by the [DoH] Personnel Section to both the Human Resources and Treasury Departments to ensure DOH have [sic] the current and accurate payroll information for each employee.”