Compensation Alone Costs Sulphur Between $200,000 - $300,000 In On Year, Audit Shows
An estimated total of $200,000.00 to $300,000.00 in payroll overpayments and underpayments to employees for fiscal year 2022-2023 that are deemed to have cost the City of Sulphur, was revealed to Sulphur Council members at the regular monthly meeting Monday night. This figure is only for one year. Over a 10-20 year period, the amount could potentially be in the millions.
Jack Roye, of Michael W. Green, CPA firm, presented findings at the meeting. Roye stated the ledgers provided are not sufficient to make an exact determination of some of the cost or liabilities. In a letter of audit findings, it is stated that the root cause of the issues can be traced to the city’s management and staff not understanding the city’s policies and having no written procedures for payroll while using outdated practices of utilizing spreadsheets and paper time sheets to calculate and track compensation for city employees instead of using modern technologies such as time clocks and payroll computer software to do the calculations and tracking.
