November 8, 2007

WEITZMAN REVIEWS COUNTY OFFICE OF HOUSING AND
INTERGOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS’ TIME AND LEAVE RECORDS

A new review by Nassau Comptroller Howard Weitzman of the county’s Office of Housing and Intergovernmental Affairs (“OHIA”) shows that the department implemented most of the recommendations made by Comptroller Weitzman about tracking time and leave following his 2004 audit of the Economic Development vertical.

“This review shows that the Office of Housing and Intergovernmental Affairs has implemented many of our recommendations, to ensure that employees are credited only with the time they have worked,” Comptroller Weitzman said.  “I commend the administration for the significant strides they have made to improve their controls over timekeeping and urge them to continue to improve.”

Despite the improvements, the auditors still found errors in certain time and leave practices during the test period. OHIA did not post all leave time used by employees to the Nassau Unified Human Resources System (NUHRS), the County’s personnel and payroll system. As a result, five employees’ leave balances included a total of 18.5 days of leave time worth over $5,000 that they had already used. One former employee took six days of leave in February and one in August, none had been posted to NUHRS.

Another finding involved two ordinance employees who were authorized to follow flexible hours. The employees did not work the necessary number of hours per pay period in three of the pay periods selected for testing, yet were not charged leave time for the missing hours. Auditors found that the employees worked from two and a half hours to fifteen minutes less than the required hours during the weeks tested.

 The review also found that other improvements still need to be made, including:

• daily initialing of timesheets by the timekeepers;
• the roles of timekeeper and payroll clerk need to be separated;
• Timesheets and Employee Request and Authorization for Leave forms should have all required signatures and be filled out completely;
• Leave time should be entered into NUHRS promptly.
  

Since the audit report was shared with the agency in draft, the agency reports that it has posted all leave time in NUHURS and taken steps to recover the payment to a former employee for leave time that had been used but not posted to NUHRS.  The agency has also agreed to segregate the duties of timekeeper and payroll clerk to provide an additional internal control.

The report may be read by clicking on the link below.

Limited Review of Time and Leave at the Office of Housing and Intergovernmental Affairs (.pdf)

Corrective Action Plan EDV - OHIA - Feb 2008 (.pdf)