DETROIT, Mich. (WXYZ) — A Wayne County employee was made into a millionaire last month thanks to a human error that county safeguards filed to catch.
The mistake led to a $1.6 million deposit being made into an employee’s paycheck at the end of May.
“No excuses for it, that kind of thing can’t happen,” said County Executive Warren Evans. “Almost did.”
The employee, who sources say has worked for the county for more than 20 years, alerted her supervisor the following day and began the process of returning the seven-figure sum.
But that the payment was able to happen in the first place, the county says, is why two employees have been terminated while a third is currently under suspension.
The mistake happened, 7 News Detroit has learned, when a supervisor was updating payroll information for a county employee who had just received a raise.
Where they should have typed in the employee’s hourly rate, they entered their employee ID number instead. That produced the mammoth check that should have been red flagged, but wasn’t.
“I can tell you that there are multiple fail safes, theoretically, built into the system," Evans said. "And at least three of those didn’t work."
This is not the first paycheck mishap since Wayne County upgraded its payroll system last year, ultimately switching to a system run by Oracle.
In August, about 400 County Sheriff’s employees reported being shortchanged in their paychecks, with some receiving less than $1.
Those mistakes were attributed to human error and were eventually resolved, but the county says today—and this latest error demonstrates—there are some significant kinks still to be worked out.
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Switching over to the new payroll system was a long time coming in Wayne County, and followed years of delays and millions spent trying to get the new system up and running.
County employees say, even a year after switching over, many within the county are still not familiar with how to use it, and say human errors like this are made possible due to a lack of training.
In light of the overpayment, county commission Chairwoman Alisha Bell said that the county should take steps to investigate whether other mistakes have been made with county payroll.
“It could have been $100 here, $200 here, you don’t notice the small amounts,” she said. “But obviously you’re going to notice if it’s a million dollars.”
County Commissioner Glenn Anderson only learned of the overpayment when he was told by 7 News Detroit.
“It should have been caught by someone and I’ll be interested to find out what the process is and why something like that could slip through,” Anderson said.
The county says it is continuing to review any its payroll system in search of other errors, but so far hasn't found any.
“Anytime you go through a big transition from Oracles and (enterprise resource planning systems), those things happen in any big organization. But it doesn’t mean they should.”
Contact 7 Investigator Ross Jones at ross.jones@wxyz.com or at (248) 827-9466.