The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents heard an updated report Friday from administrators on recently discovered overpayments made to employees through the Human Resources System over the past year.
A January report by the state Legislative Audit Bureau brought public attention to $33 million in overpayments to UW System employees for health and retirement benefits.
UW System Director of Operations and Audit Review Elizabeth Dionne said they found an additional $1.1 million in overpayments, which were a result of mistakes in income tax withholding and billing of benefits to UW System employees, that have also not yet been recovered.
UW System President Kevin Reilly said the system is taking a three-pronged approach to solving the issues: an internal audit, a risk assessment by an independent group and full compliance with an additional state audit.
“We are fixing issues as we go,” Reilly said. “We will continue to fix the rest of the problems as we go forward.”
Reilly also said the administration is looking into the possibility of getting credit back for the overpayments.
UW-Stevens Point Chancellor Bernie Patterson said dealing with the HRS problems over the past year has been difficult for employees, citing examples of some employees not receiving paychecks on time.
“I've heard good reports about how things are changing and improving but it's been a difficult time,” Patterson said.
Regent Michael Falbo said while the board shouldn’t feel at ease until the problems are corrected, the necessary attention and resources are being put forward to resolve the issue.
“Nobody is going to walk out of here with a happy feeling,” Falbo said. “Hopefully you'll walk out of here with the confidence that we're putting everything we can towards solving this.”
Regent Jeffrey Bartell said he also hopes UW System administration is exploring how this can be prevented in the future, in addition to how the mistakes occurred in the first place.
Regent President Brent Smith said the board will continue discussing the overpayments in its March meeting and all regents will receive updates as more details become available.
