A City Council Auditor’s report released this week found payroll to Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office employees was generally handled correctly, but there is room for improvement.
Among the areas of need are improving internal control weaknesses.
Suggested changes range from developing standard operating procedures for payroll, eliminating manual timekeeping, additional oversight on future changes and ensuring that every employee has to attest to time worked.
An exemption allows certain employees, such as those stationed in the Duval County Courthouse and those receiving military pay, to not confirm their hours.
The review covered two payroll periods from fiscal 2014-15.
In all, 99 payments were sampled — to put in perspective, the sheriff’s office had 3,038 full-time positions and 619,864 part-time hours approved for that year.
Auditors reviewed a host of aspects in the payroll system, including timekeeping procedures developed by the city’s information technology department, as part of the audit that made sure the city and sheriff’s office were in alignment.
Additionally, adjustments in shift differential pay were suggested to ensure across-the-board consistency.
The dollar impact of the problem was “relatively minor,” according to the report.
Undersheriff Pat Ivey in a statement said the audit solidified what the sheriff’s office has said for some time –– that the systems in place have deficiencies.
However, he said, he didn’t think those deficiencies resulted in any “economic substance” greater than the cost of staffing to do the manual work and administrative checking required by a deficient system.
It was further suggested that a future audit be considered to review payments related to officers for secondary work.
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