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FAMU Employees Asked to Return Money

By Candice Montgomery
Black College Wire

Florida A&M University administrators have mailed letters to 66 employees asking them to return unapproved bonuses they received because of a payroll system glitch.

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"About $67,000 was overpaid to the employees during the Jan. 18 payroll," said Teresa Hardee, the vice president of administrative and fiscal affairs.

Hardee said the recent letter asked that the employees, who include some graduate assistants and contract faculty, repay the money in full or by a payment plan.

Hardee also said the recipients have until April 4 to respond to the letter.

If the recipients do not respond to the letter, Hardee said the money will be taken out of their checks.

Some employees were underpaid, according to Hardee, but they have already been compensated.

Legacy Payroll System was phased out to introduce a new payroll system. The new system - Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise Human Capitol Management was installed Jan. 4.

Carla Hills, FAMU's physical plant coordinator, said the only difference between the new system and the old system is that the state used to control and cut checks, but now FAMU is cutting its own.

A computer controls the system, but Sharon Saunders, the University's chief of communications officer, said the division of fiscal affairs will now audit each payroll.

Fiscal affairs representative Lashonda McCloud said FAMU has already taken action so that the situation will not reoccur.

McCloud said there are three major trainings provided to time and labor representatives. FAMU is providing the training so that fiscal affairs employees can be more familiar with the payroll system.

McCloud said there is one-on-one training provided by Enterprise Information Technology that is conducted before each pay period.

"We have controls in place to make sure we don't have this problem again," Saunders said.

Candice Montgomery writes for The Famuan, which originally published a version of this article.

Posted March 24, 2008