Tue, Jul 12 - 4:54 AM

Some employees of the IWK Health Centre in Halifax say there have been many problems with their pay stubs since the hospital moved to a new payroll system.

Some IWK Health Centre workers say their paycheques have been messed up since the Halifax hospital moved to the provincewide SAP administrative system last year.

They describe missing pay, especially overtime and holiday hours, and pension contributions that have not been deducted properly.

Employees say the difference is often a few dollars a week that can easily go unnoticed, and it takes constant vigilance to correct it.

The hospital can’t say how many employees have been affected or how much money is in question, but it acknowledges there have been problems. Spokeswoman Gillian Batten also said the IWK corrected a widespread glitch in its pension calculations earlier this year.

The province has a history of problems with its implementation of the payroll system from SAP, a global company headquartered in Germany. The system has been rolled out gradually in different departments since 1997. Auditor general Jacques Lapointe filed several reports, the last in 2006, pointing out flaws in how it was adopted.

Lapointe wrote in 2009 that he was satisfied that changes had been made. In an interview Monday, he said he has not looked at SAP glitches since then.

But payroll is a serious business, Lapointe said: the onus is on the province, as with any employer, to go the necessary distance to make sure its employees are paid correctly.

"I would expect, if there are problems in the payroll area, that someone is looking at it seriously," Lapointe said. "Payroll cheques might seem like a minor item to the people writing the cheques, but they’re quite significant to the people receiving them."

Provincial departments that employ people outside nine-to-five office hours have had trouble adapting to SAP. In 2005, the prison system’s move to the payroll system caused headaches for months, according to Robin MacLean, director of negotiations and servicing for the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union.

"It had problems capturing the hours people worked," MacLean said. "They had to reconfigure the system after many, many complaints from employees. It was quite bad, and there was a lot of anger and frustration."

The district health authorities and the IWK were recent converts to SAP in April 2010 under a provincial health system restructuring plan.

IWK workers spoke up about their frustrations after learning of similar problems at the Victorian Order of Nurses, which were reported in The Chronicle Herald last week. IWK employees say they must pore over the complex coding on their paycheques and demand the missing amounts from payroll clerks, who they say are learning on the fly.

The IWK has checks and balances in place to spot and resolve problems. Batten said a special staff position and group are dedicated to smoothing the transition.

A provincial working group overseeing the health system overhaul has recommended making data integrity, reporting and auditing a priority, she said — but it is important for employees to keep a close eye on their own paycheques.

"You can’t be the eyes and ears all the time," she said.

The Finance Department, which went back and forth with the auditor general over the SAP system, does not direct the health authorities’ SAP programs, spokesman Andrew Preeper said in an email.