Talk about a sweet payday.
Clark County employees who receive their paychecks via direct deposit got a short-lived bonus this week when their pay was accidentally posted three times.
Oops.
Deputy Treasurer John Payne said Tuesday he doesn’t know yet how it happened. The treasurer’s office sends the payroll file to Bank of America, which disburses money to the various employees’ banks and accounts.
“One of our questions is, ‘Why would you post three entries that had the same batch number and the same dollar amount?’” Payne said.
He said the county’s working with the bank to sleuth out what happened.
“I’m not throwing any blame at anyone right now,” Payne said.
John Ingram, finance director for the county auditor’s office, which provides the treasurer’s office with the payroll information, said Tuesday that 1,745 county employees have direct deposit.
A typical payday payout for those people would total $2.8 million, Payne said.
Times three, that’s $8.4 million.
In advance of paydays — employees are paid on the 10th and 25th of each month — the county withdraws money from its account with the state investment pool, Payne said.
The county notified Bank of America of the mistake, Payne said, and the bank will not charge the county any fees.
Direct deposits have to be posted two days in advance, Payne said, and a treasurer’s office employee who monitors transactions caught the mistake right away.
At 9:30 a.m. Monday, employees received an email from the county’s payroll department.
“At this point it appears to be a banking error and we are working with the bank to identify the cause and correct the duplicate deposits,” the email read.
“If you have had this situation happen with your bank account, please do not spend the extra funds, as a reversal will be processed.”
Payne said there will be no fees charged to employees for correcting the mistakes, and no employees withdrew the money.
“The employees got their pay as they were supposed to,” Payne said. “Did an error happen? Yes. How did it happen? That’s what we are exploring.”
Stephanie Rice: 360-735-4508 or stephanie.rice@columbian.com.
