Town Staff Attacked for Receiving Pay for Hours Worked

The following letter was submitted to local newspapers and is shared with us here by the author Bonnie Van Slyke. Bonnie Van Slyke was a member of the Charlestown Town Council for the past 8 years.

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The law requires that employees be compensated for all their regular work hours. In August Charlestown’s Treasurer requested an end-of-year transfer because, instead of the normal 26 pay periods in the fiscal year ending June 30, there was a very rare 27th pay period.

Charlestown pays its employees every two weeks and follows the standard practice of budgeting 260 work days per year (52 weeks per year times 5 working days per week). Although not capturing all potential working days in a year, such as, for example, the extra day in a leap year, the Town is required to pay employees for the time they actually worked.

Members of the Town Council were satisfied with the explanation and voted 5–0 to approve the transfer.

At the November 14 Town Council meeting, Stephen Hoff, who claims he is a registered CPA in Connecticut, read a statement. He did not mention the additional pay period. Instead, he accused Town staff of withholding information from the Council and alleged the transfer was made, not to pay employees for hours they had worked, but rather to overpay them because of a “silent liability” that has been hidden for years and needed to be paid in 2022.

Charlestown, whose previous treasurers were registered CPAs in Rhode Island, uses an independent program administered by Automatic Data Processing (ADP) for payroll. The Town calculates employee pay and accounts for the fact that there are an uneven number of days in a year, that some years are leap years, that very rarely there are 27 pay periods in the fiscal year, etc., the way other cities and towns throughout the state and the nation do.

Mr. Hoff said he knew a better way. He would calculate employee pay using a lower hourly rate, underpaying employees during the year. He would then issue additional paychecks at the end of the year. Many experts think that Mr. Hoff’s method is not consistent with the generally accepted process, his method is unfair to employees, and the method Charlestown uses is widely accepted and fair.

A number of times since he moved here from Litchfield, CT, around 2007, Mr. Hoff has said he has discovered serious problems. Many have been unfounded, and none has been proven to be a serious problem.

Before alleging, again, that a serious problem exists and before accusing Town staff, falsely, of a serious misdeed, Mr. Hoff should recognize that Charlestown’s method of calculating its employees’ hourly pay is standard practice and has not created a long-standing “silent liability” that needed to be paid. Charlestown paid its employees for the hours they worked.

There is an independent audit being conducted by the Town’s new accounting firm, and there is, proposed by the Town Administrator, an ongoing operational and organizational assessment of the town’s financial process and internal controls by an independent consultant. Because things can always be done better, it is expected that their recommendations will enhance operations for the current and future needs of the town.

 

 

 

You can learn more about Bonnie at her profile page.