How MnSCU chief Rosenstone has reacted to Metro State’s payroll snafu

This was forwarded to me.

It appears MnSCU Chancellor Steven Rosenstone has called for an audit of Metropolitan State University's payroll problems.

His take so far:

This appears to be an isolated problem. Other than the random errors that occasionally arise in processing the payroll for 18,000 faculty and staff across our colleges and universities, these kinds of systematic errors have not manifested themselves on other campuses.

Here's the full email:

Dear Metropolitan State University Faculty and Staff,

I am writing to let you know how deeply concerned I am about the serious errors Metro State has made in processing its employee payroll. Given the extensive nature of the errors, it is going to take some time to understand and fix each and every one of them. I am committed to ensuring that, moving forward, the Metro State payroll practices will be accurate, efficient, and transparent. These payroll problems must never happen again. They are simply unacceptable.

Last Monday afternoon when I learned from the IFO state president about the severity of Metro State’s payroll problems, I took two immediate actions: I asked Vice Chancellor Mark Carlson to return from a meeting in St. Cloud to assess, first-hand, the situation at Metro State and I asked Beth Buse, Director of Internal Audit, to conduct a formal audit of the situation. Last week Mark Carlson spent a good part of the week on site and he engaged several colleagues from the system office and from another campus to assist in processing payroll forms for the faculty members who appear to be most impacted by the errors. Director Buse also had audit staff on site last week and has begun planning the formal audit.

Mark Carlson’s priority thus far has been to work with Metro State’s HR department to fix their payroll mistakes. They focused first on getting everyone a payroll check this coming Friday and are now turning to identifying the errors that have occurred over the past months and correcting them. It will take a number of payroll cycles to identify and correct all the salary errors. It will likely take some additional time to verify that benefits are in order. We are working to gain a full and complete understanding of the scope of the problem, what led to the errors, and what needs to change at Metro State to ensure that this does not happen again. Mark and his colleagues will continue to pitch in to help fix the errors. Internal Audit is developing an audit plan with the goal of providing assurances on the accuracy of Metro State’s remediation of the issues and assurances on the internal controls going forward. The audit will commence once the immediate payroll issues have been resolved.

This appears to be an isolated problem. Other than the random errors that occasionally arise in processing the payroll for 18,000 faculty and staff across our colleges and universities, these kinds of systematic errors have not manifested themselves on other campuses.

I deeply appreciate the tremendous work that you do every day to serve students and the greater metro area. Metropolitan State University is a tremendous resource to our community and our state. I am committed to resolving this situation and to Metro State emerging stronger than ever.

Best regards,

 

Steven

 

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