Department of Agriculture paycheck mistakes abound in the first month of a personnel system run by a Cincinnati company, Convergys.
By JONI JAMES
Published November 11, 2004
TALLAHASSEE - Florida Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson would have been docked a day's pay. Another 500 state employees stood to lose a two-week paycheck. Others were in line to receive duplicate paychecks.
Those are just a few of the problems the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services noticed during the first month its payroll was administered by People First, the state's computerized personnel system run by private company Convergys of Cincinnati.
Agriculture Department chief of staff Terry Rhodes, in an unusual letter written Oct. 28, complained it took 60-hour weeks for her eight personnel employees to process emergency payments and ensure all employees were paid correctly on time at a cost of $22,860.
Department of Financial Services employees, who actually write the state's checks, also worked overtime to process the requests. The cost was not available Wednesday.
"People First has been inconsistent and unable to effectively process any of the department's payroll," Rhodes wrote. "Reconciliation efforts (of department accounts) are becoming futile as the information provided by the (Convergys) Service Center is inaccurate."
Two years after Gov. Jeb Bush pushed the Legislature to outsource the state's personnel services rather than upgrade the state's computer network, the experience of the Agriculture Department illustrates how rocky the transition has been.
Department of Management Services Secretary Bill Simon, whose agency oversees the Convergys contract, said the company will be expected to cover the extra expenses. He said many of the initial problems have been fixed in the complex system that serves 120,000 employees, 38 state agencies and 180,000 state retirees.
"Every single conversion I've ever been through (with technology), there are unforeseen problems," said Simon, who was a business executive before joining Bush's administration last year. "But I think we're fairly pleased at this point."
Chris Emerick, vice president for Convergys' public sector division, said he had not seen Rhodes' letter. He and Simon noted the Agriculture Department's conversion to People First came in September as the state braced for hurricanes and slowed other work.
"Not seeing the letter, I'm not sure how many of the issues may be dated at this point," Emerick said. "But any outstanding issues we're going to work to understand them and resolve to their satisfaction."
Rhodes could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Agriculture Department spokesman Terry McElroy declined to comment on the letter's specifics.
"The implementation has been a bit rocky," McElroy said.
Other problems Rhodes noted in her letter: Some employees were told their insurance had been canceled when they were reassigned or promoted; department staffers trying to resolve problems spent two hours on the phone with Convergys' service center; and overtime and other additional pay for employees wasn't being processed appropriately.
Simon said Wednesday that Rhodes' primary concern - the potential nonpayment of 500 hourly employees - occurred in part because managers and employees for the Agriculture Department had not been adequately trained on the system because of the hurricanes. Convergys was supposed to input the payroll figures but failed to do so on time.
Bronson's paycheck was nearly docked because a Convergys employee transposed an employee identification number, he said.
"I'm confident things are going better now," Simon said. He said Convergys' service center has cut average time for its calls to 10 minutes and 22 seconds. The eventual goal is 7 minutes.
The outsourcing of the state's personnel services has been controversial since 2002, when lawmakers agreed to abolish the state's personnel department.
Last month, the Legislature's auditor general criticized DMS for how it awarded the $278.6-million, seven-year contract to Convergys. The 2002 deal, which has since been amended to $350-million over nine years, had not followed the state's contract methods or provided safeguards against improper influence by former employees-turned-lobbyists, the audit said.
