CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A legislative audit has raised a red flag on compensation time payouts from the state Division of Highways.
In 2014, the DOH paid over $242,000 in a comp time buyout to nearly 100 of its employees who racked up about 6,200 hours of comp time, but Legislative Auditor Aaron Allred said the spending of that state money “wasn’t required by law.”
“We don’t know who is telling the truth here. We don’t know whether DOH was told by the state Auditor that it couldn’t handle comp time or whether DOH is telling us incorrectly that that’s the case,” Allred said.
But state Transportation Secretary Paul Mattox told lawmakers Thursday morning the payouts were legal. He said they were complete after the DOH was told the state’s new wvOASIS payroll system, KRONOS, would not calculate comp time.
Mattox said he talked to a lot of experts in the agency before making the decision.
“Based upon my legal division, business manager and my human resources division, a policy was developed to do away, change the policies so that compensatory time would no longer be allowed,” he said.
Allred said the comp time payments didn’t have to take place.
“This was unnecessary,” he said. “These were people, a lot of them making $80,000, $90,000, $100,000 a year that comp time was not required by federal law to be paid to in the first place.”
The state Auditor indicated no other buyouts by state agencies, to his knowledge, have occurred other than the buyout at DOH.
The legislative auditor’s letter to legislative leaders is below:
Dear Mr. President and Mr. Speaker:
It has recently come to my attention that in 2014 the Division of Highways (DOH) initiated a payout of all DOH employees’ compensatory time. This resulted in 99 employees being paid a total of $242,778.11. The top three payouts were for a Highway District Engineer/Manager ($10,678.15); the former Equipment Division Director/Executive Assistant to the Agency Head ($10,056.46); and the Deputy Secretary ($9,596.05). It must be noted that this is the same former Equipment Division Director that was indicted on 29 federal offenses in 2015. Along with the compensatory time buyout, DOH policy was modified to eliminate the ability to earn compensatory time in the future. According to the Secretary of Transportation/Commissioner of Highways:
…the previous policy was changed in preparation for the wvOASIS payroll implementation. The DOH was advised that the new payroll system, called KRONOS, would not accommodate the earning or use of compensatory time. As a result of the inability of KRONOS to track the earning and use of compensatory time, the DOH policy was changed to eliminate compensatory time entirely.
The assessment of KRONOS’ inability to track compensatory time is incorrect according to the ERP Project Director who oversees wvOasis and KRONOS. He stated:
…the KRONOS application is capable of and has been configured to allow for the earning or use of compensatory time. The wvOASIS application has been configured to ensure compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) for non-exempt employees and allow for various agency desired flexibilities for FLSA exempt classification employees.
The Director of the Joint Committee on Government and Finance’s Fiscal Office stated that her understanding of how compensatory time is calculated and paid by KRONOS is the same as described by the wvOasis ERP Project Director. However, since Joint Expenses is not utilizing KRONOS, the Joint Committee has not tested the compensatory time calculations, and our understanding is based solely on information provided by wvOASIS during the various trainingsessions.
Additionally, the design specification for compensatory time was recommended by the WV ERP Steering Committee which includes the Secretary of Transportation or his designee. This design specification is for 1.5 hours of compensatory time for each hour over 40 hours in a workweek for non-exempt employees. Compensatory time for exempt employees will accrue at the rate authorized by the agency and may not exceed 240 or 480 hours depending upon FLSA rules.
Regarding the DOH compensatory buyout, the State Auditor added:
…any compensatory time buyouts were unnecessary and a discretionary decision made by the agency or agencies, as the new system is fully capable of handling the recording of compensatory time balances earned in other legacy leave systems and accounting for its later usage within wvOASIS HRM/Payroll.
The State Auditor indicated he has no knowledge of buyouts by state agencies other than the DOH buyout. Thus, my office also concludes that the $242,778 payout of DOH employees was an unnecessary expense by the Division of Highways. Attached to this letter is the full correspondence from the Cabinet Secretary of the Department of Transportation, the wvOasis ERP Director, and the State Auditor.
Sincerely,
Aaron Allred