Records show taxpayers are owed over $500 million because of mistakes made by the Phoenix Pay System. .According to Blacklock’s Reporter, one department has started writing off the extra money paid to employees who have passed away..“Since the launch of Phoenix, approximately 389,500 employees have been identified as having received either an administrative overpayment or true overpayment totalling $3.08 billion as of April 24,” the cabinet wrote in an Inquiry of Ministry tabled in Parliament..A total of $553 million has yet to be recovered. “Some situations are related to late processing where timeliness is key.”.In 2016, the government introduced the Phoenix Pay System to save $70 million yearly. They wanted to combine 46 different payroll departments into one system, which was set up in the 1970s. However, instead of making things easier, the new software messed up most employees payments..Access to Information records showed Phoenix Pay was so mismanaged it could not read decimal points, incorrectly billed some employees for provincial health premiums and paid casual employees at hourly rates that differed from what they were quoted. In addition to shortchanging employees on some cheques, the system subsequently overpaid others..Overpayments to date affected 41,000 employees at the department of Employment, followed by the department of National Defence (30,000 employees), Correctional Service (23,000), Canada Border Services Agency (22,000), department of Public Works (22,000), department of Fisheries (19,000), department of Immigration (15,000), department of Health (15,000), Parks Canada (12,000), RCMP (11,000) and the department of Foreign Affairs (10,000)..Figures were released at the request of Conservative MP Gerald Soroka (Yellowhead, AB), who asked, “What was the total amount of overpayments made by the Phoenix Pay System?”.The department of Public Works, which is in charge of payroll oversight, has not yet taken off any of the $553 million that still needs to be paid back for overpayments..“Employees are to acknowledge their debt or enter into a repayment agreement in order to have access to flexible repayment options,” said the Inquiry..One payroll manager from the department of Industry has started to write off the extra money that was mistakenly paid to employees who have passed away..The department abandoned the collection of “one overpayment in the amount of $45,482 related to a deceased employee.”.No one has figured out how much money the Phoenix Payroll System failure has cost. The Auditor General called it an “inexplicable failure.” .In 2019, the Parliamentary Budget Office estimated that it had cost $2.6 billion, including ongoing software fixes. And on top of that, the government had to pay $685 million to employees who did not get the right amount of money in their paycheques.
