Detroit — Some Wayne County Sheriff’s deputies recently received paychecks for less than a dollar after the county switched to a new payroll system that caused “discrepancies” among hundreds of employees.
About 400 Wayne County Sheriff’s Office employees are among those affected by the outage, according to a spokesman for County Executive Warren Evans. A county commissioner says some private contractors are also having trouble getting their full pay. The affected employees make up about 5% of the county’s workforce.
“It’s chaos,” said Corporal Allen Cox, president of the Wayne County Deputy Sheriff’s Association, the union that represents sheriff’s deputies. “We have deputies getting checks for 48 cents or 68 cents.”
Other lawmakers had entire check amounts deposited into the health savings account, Cox said.
The deputies, like most county employees, are paid every two weeks, and several deputies reported problems with their paychecks about six weeks ago, Cox said. Most are now receiving their full pay, but some are still owed back pay.
“This is a breach of trust,” Cox said.
The problem stems from the first major overhaul of the county’s payroll system in more than two decades, county officials said. They said the county is currently in a “stabilization phase,” meaning any problems that arise are resolved within two days.
“The transition was complex and there are many factors that contributed to the disruptions,” said a statement from County Executive Evans’ office.
“Every effort has been made to correct employee salaries within 48 hours of notification,” the emailed statement said. “The county is fully committed to resolving any salary discrepancies.” The county has also “engaged key consultants and mobilized additional resources to promptly address the issues and will do so to ensure a complete resolution.”
“We are in a post-go-live stabilization phase that involves identifying, analyzing and resolving issues identified in the live production environment. These actions are common practice during system implementations and major upgrades such as these,” the county’s statement said.
But given these mishaps, some lawmakers will no longer volunteer to work overtime until they have received all their pay, Cox said.
Many sheriff’s employees routinely work overtime due to staffing shortages, union officials said. For example, the sheriff’s office has budgeted for a total of 453 corporal positions this fiscal year, but had 195 vacancies in January 2024, according to data obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. A deputy in Wayne County currently makes $48,654 a year off the bat under a contract approved last year, which works out to about $23 an hour.
Wayne Commissioner Irma Clark-Coleman, who represents Detroit, said she has heard of several other county departments besides the sheriff’s office having problems with payroll. In some cases, the county resorted to issuing paper checks instead of electronic deposits to ensure payment.
“The problem is random because it is partly due to human error in various departments,” Clark-Coleman said. The change has been discussed by district officials for more than two years and staff have been trained, Clark-Coleman said.
“The worst is over,” Clark-Coleman said of the situation.
