Algonquin Township Road District -Time Card Tuesday #13

McHenry Co. (ECWd) –

If you are new to our Time Card Tuesday series we urge you to catch up by first reading part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12  As pointed out in our last article, it is abundantly clear, whoever was managing payroll has some explaining to do.

This series brings us into the third payroll period for 2015 and as suspected, the time cards are filled with significant overtime and other errors that appear to have garnered significant extra pay. Date of this coverage is for 1/29/2015 to 2/11/2015.

WOW! 

Once again, a payroll record for this period points to ZERO vacation time taken even though time cards for this period report 19 hours of vacation time taken.  When vacation time is taken and not recorded on the payroll record, it possibly leaves vacation time on the books to be used and paid out……again.  To date, the Township & Road District has not been able to provide any vacation time record for Anna May Miller other than payroll records used in this series on her time cards.

The payroll reflects payment for 80 hours of regular time even though the time cards only point to 61 hours of regular time.  At $30 an hour, that would be $570.00 in regular time not worked. That is the same figure for the vacation time found on the time cards.

The math for regular time points to an actual shortage of 2 hours and 30 minutes, thus actual hours worked based on time cards should have been 63.5 hours for total pay of $1,905.00 instead of $2,400.00.   Regular time pay was $495.00 more than what time cards point to.

Considering employees are restricted from utilizing their vacation time between November 15 and April 15, it is clear extra income was obtained in what appears to be a direct violation of the Employee Policy Manual.  With 19 hours of vacation time being paid, $570.00 was paid for vacation during a time when policy manual forbids it.

The real benefit to the pay once again comes on the payroll figure for overtime, which reflects she was paid for 15 hours of overtime.  The time cards recorded a claimed 15.5 hours which would indicate the payroll being 30 minutes short on overtime, however, basic math appears to expose the actual overtime total should be 8 hours and 45 minutes.  So being paid for 15 hours in overtime when the time card math only points to 8 hours and 45 minutes indicates an extra 6 hours and 15 minutes in overtime, or $281.25 in extra overtime pay.

Policy Manual – HOURS OF WORK COMPENSABLE AT OVERTIME PREMIUM – “This will be provided after 40 hours in a week regardless of the hours worked in any one (1) day.”

So before daily overtime could be added to pay, 40 hours in a week must have been worked.

It appears that overtime was paid even though there were not 40 hours worked as required in the Employee Policy Manual.  Allowing vacation time to be taken in order to qualify for overtime appears to have ensured more money in the paycheck.   An argument can be made that none of the overtime for regular work days should have been paid since there were not 40 hrs worked.  Applying that standard, which is very common, no overtime should have been paid. Allowing vacation time to count towards time worked for overtime nets an extra 15 hours of overtime, or $675.00.

With $570.00 of vacation time during the restricted time for vacation use and $675.00 in extra overtime, the running total of extra pay now appears to be $22,557.61.

For those wondering, any extra pay becomes part of the IMRF Pension calculations which means it is the taxpayer who will continue to pay for bad math pay, up until the point the last pension check is paid or terminated by authorities which can only happen with a felony conviction.

As we have said multiple times, the McHenry County State’s Attorney had these very time cards but we do not know if he ever evaluated them for the type of discrepancies we are seeing against the actual payroll record.  The matter is currently in the hands of the Appellate Prosecutor and we are awaiting an update on the status.

Stay tuned for next week’s Time Card Tuesday series.

You can download the time cards at this link or view below as well as the payroll record at this link or view below.

.
Our work is funded entirely thru donations and we
ask that you consider donating at the below link.