By Chris Cassidy, Metro West News (Massachusetts)
BOXBOROUGH, Ma. - The Boxborough Police Union is leveling accusations of “administrative incompetence” against the town following a payroll mistake that resulted in its full-time officers being overpaid by more than $10,000 last week.
The town, however, says the mistake was an accounting error that has been fixed.
During the paycheck cycle ending Nov. 21, officers were overpaid by an average of about $1,000 per officer, according to Sgt. Warren Ryder, the union’s secretary and treasurer.
All totaled, officers found an extra $10,078.92 deposited into their personal bank accounts by the town, union officials said.
The union was alerted to the error when an officer with direct deposit noticed his bank balance higher than normal, Ryder said.
Because eight of the department’s nine full-time officers receive direct deposit, they wrote out personal checks for the difference and appeared before the Board of Selectmen Monday night to return the money.
“The members of the union were not comfortable keeping money that didn’t belong to us,” Ryder said.
According to Town Administrator Natalie Lashmit, the error occurred when a town employee incorrectly entered the number of hours officers earned for specialty pay.
When it was discovered, the town tried to correct the mistake by contacting its payroll service, ADP, which confirmed that the mistakes had been corrected, Lashmit said.
But Tuesday, Lashmit learned ADP forgot to withhold the incorrect deposits, causing the discrepancy, she said.
In addition, there were also errors calculating overtime pay. Some officers were underpaid by as little as $50 and as much as $84, Lashmit said. The town immediately offered to cut checks for the difference, Lashmit said.
Five officers were also overpaid for overtime by as little as $21 to as much as $235.
The town is currently operating without a full-time treasurer, which also contributed to the mistake, Lashmit said.
Officials had been seeking a replacement for former Town Treasurer Stan Smith, who resigned in October. In the interim, the town is using support staff to handle the treasurer’s duties.
Lashmit said the town would have caught the error when it reconciled its November payroll, even if the union hadn’t reported the discrepancy.
Officers would have detected the discrepancies when the checks were deposited into their bank accounts on Dec. 1, Lashmit said.
Neither she nor the police chief were aware of any problems until the officers reported them during Monday night’s selectmen’s meeting, Lashmit said.
Members of the police union sharply criticized Lashmit for the errors and for her handling of other matters relating to the union.
Tuesday morning, the union issued a press release titled “Boxborough cops are policing their paychecks,” in which President Jeff Landgren called the incident “administrative incompetence.”
Ryder defended union members’ decision to raise the issue during open session because they felt it was the only way to show residents what happened to their tax dollars, he said.
“We don’t know why there seem to be so many errors,” Ryder said. “Not only can’t they get our paychecks right, but every penny in this town at this time is accounted for because the budget’s so tight. If they can just dole out $10,000 without even knowing about it, it makes us question whether our budget really is tight, or can they just not manage their money very well?”
Further, the union, which consists of nine full-time officers, passed a vote of no confidence in Lashmit at a recent meeting, Ryder said.
“We’re not here to sensationalize anything,” Ryder said. “We just want the public to know -- because we feel they have a right to know -- that we’re not comfortable with the management.”
Lashmit said she hadn’t heard of the union’s no-confidence vote.
“It doesn’t phase me one way or the other,” Lashmit said.
The town and police union have faced unsteady relations over the past year.
In September, the town and police union signed a three-year contract after 18 months of negotiations that eventually went to mediation.
Ryder charged that, during negotiations, Lashmit misrepresented salaries of officers in neighboring towns and repeatedly presented facts and figures that were “grossly incorrect.”
Lashmit denied those allegations.
Selectmen Kristin Hilberg and Don Wheeler both defended Lashmit and her handling of the union.
“I wish I understood the hidden agenda,” said Wheeler.
Officers should have followed the chain of command and brought the payroll problem first to the police chief, rather than directly to selectmen, Wheeler said.
“That would indicate to me that the agenda was to create some kind of a negative view of the administrator,"Wheeler said. “I don’t support that at all.
“I have complete confidence that she’s doing the job we’ve asked her to do,” he said. “She fully understands her role in the town. She’s a very competent person, and she does her job.”
Hilberg credited the police union for its honesty in reporting the payroll discrepancy, but blamed the incident on human error, not incompetence.
“In this case, I think a vote of no confidence is extreme,” Hilberg said. “She did everything in her power to correct the issue. People were retrained and appropriate staff went over the procedures. If they have a vote of no confidence in the town administrator, it’s not because of this payroll issue.”
Meanwhile, town officials had fixed the problem by Tuesday afternoon and, according to Hilberg, all the issues should be resolved by the end of the calendar year.