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Finally, Village Hall Starts Doing Pay Roll In-House |
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Written by Jeff Radford
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Thursday, 24 November 2005 |
It was with some glee that Village Administrator Nora Scherzinger
reported to the mayor and Village Council late last month that the
Village’s payroll will be done in-house from now on.
Finally, she said, the municipal payroll will be done using the
advanced MIP software, the purchase of which has been controversial
since 2002.
Village Finance Officer Luís Olay said October 28 that information has
now been entered to complete the payroll in-house, which should save
$700 per month.
The Village has contracted out that function until now. About 50 people are on the municipal payroll.
Olay said his office will execute the payroll parallel with the
previous service provider for November and December and then switch
solely to the MIP system in January 2006.
The Village was supposed to have made the switch in January 2003. Asked
why it has taken so long to accomplish the change-over, Olay explained
it has been important to make the change at the end of a fiscal year.
Olay said the “electronic requisitions” component of the MIP accounting software has now also been fully implemented.
In January 2004, then-Village Administrator Harry Staven said the
payroll module of the MIP package was one of three in the new software
package that had still not been implemented. He said the payroll
function was supposed to have been implemented within MIP for the last
quarter of 2003.
“According to the agreement with the software provider, that [inputting
of data for the payroll module] was supposed to have been done in the
last quarter of last year [2003].”
Another module in the package, the “electronic requisitions”
component, also had remained unimplemented, Staven said.
Three years ago, selection and purchase of new accounting
software for the Village Office became a highly-charged political issue.
Choosing a new “Cadillac” bookkeeping software package wound up calling
into question the capabilities of Village personnel including the
Village Administrator at that time, Chris Allen.
In July 2003, Chris Allen resigned under pressure in part over her
expressed doubts about the $50,000 software package councillors
selected, as well as her defense of staff’s existing accounting
practices. They bought and installed the new MIP “Advantage” package
anyway.
But two years later, Village finances apparently were in such a
state of disarray that the recently-appointed finance director, Olay,
had to sort through “60 to 70 boxes” of records to reconcile last
year’s municipal budget.
Controversy over whether the MIP package was a good fit for Village
government continued long after Allen had been replaced by a new
administrator, Harry Staven, and temporary-hire MBA finance director,
Mark Chatham, who he brought in to ease the transition from the old
accounting system to the new one.
Scherzinger told the council she has confidence in Olay to straighten
out the bookkeeping mess. She assured that Olay, who replaced Chatham,
has 12 years of experience with MIP software. |
