# Phoenix Pay System - Shit's Horrible



## NSDreamer (30 Mar 2016)

I can't believe there isn't a thread already. Does no one else have civilian employees on here!


 Is ANYONE having any success with the phoenix pay system? I am having problem, after problem trying to get my people paid...+

It'll be cheaper they said, it'll be easier they said, senior officers are now pay clerks they should have said  :facepalm:


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## dapaterson (30 Mar 2016)

Are your folks casuals?  Term?  Students?

For indeterminate pers, it seems to be ticking along just fine.


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## Remius (30 Mar 2016)

Working fine where I'm at.


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## NSDreamer (30 Mar 2016)

I've got over 30 indeterminates. If it works, it's great. It doesn't work if any of the following is true:

They are  on Return to Work Program.
They are Casuals.
They work ANY irregular hours or are a shift worker.
They are on pre-retirement transitionary schedules.
They work weekends.

 I've got folks on the return to work program who didn't get paid, had their hours in, which I can't see because I'm military, then I got the run around from pay comp and phoenix with contradicting directions, eventually with HR help submitted an emergency pay request as the employees in question are in financial hardship. Emergency pay request is then denied because derp derp they should have submitted in the phoenix system...which they did.

God help me with my shift workers, I have to manually submit every single employees schedule every pay run and have it signed by a section 34 authority (which I am not). Also keep in mind I don't have access to the system to submit them in because I'm military, so I  have to submit them in the pay enquiry system who then...derp derp deny them and tell me to somehow magically submit them in phoenix. I have the Sect 34 submit them, nope MUST be their direct manager...and it goes on. I've probably put over 10 man hours a week into this since phoenix came out.

 *edited some bad grammar and typos.


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## NSDreamer (30 Mar 2016)

Remius said:
			
		

> Working fine where I'm at.




...trade? :nod:


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## cavalryman (30 Mar 2016)

Cheer up.  The CAF will be paid via the Phoenix system sometime in 2021  [


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## NSDreamer (30 Mar 2016)

cavalryman said:
			
		

> Cheer up.  The CAF will be paid via the Phoenix system sometime in 2021  [



Heh, but at least this should be easy...I mean we all work 7.5 hours a day, every day, no schedules matter....right?

Poor reservists though...that's going to suck.


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## Remius (30 Mar 2016)

NSDreamer said:
			
		

> ...trade? :nod:



If you are willing to put up with understaffing, vague priorities and high turnover...wait maybe we work for the same people?

Kidding btw.


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## armyvern (30 Mar 2016)

NSDreamer said:
			
		

> I've got over 30 indeterminates. If it works, it's great. It doesn't work if any of the following is true:
> 
> They are  on Return to Work Program.
> They are Casuals.
> ...



Welcome to my world!!


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## NSDreamer (30 Mar 2016)

Remius said:
			
		

> If you are willing to put up with understaffing, vague priorities and high turnover...wait maybe we work for the same people?
> 
> Kidding btw.



-eyes his half packed suit case- I'll....just put this stuff back then...


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## NSDreamer (30 Mar 2016)

ArmyVern said:
			
		

> Welcome to my world!!



 Haha it's crowded here from what HR is telling me, we've got a lot of neighbors in the same boat.


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## SupersonicMax (14 Jul 2016)

The Government roll out its new Pay system for public servants and it seems it has some major issues:

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/ottawa/phoenix-pay-single-mother-1.3677464

How can a Government be so passive with its servants that it leaves them without a salary for months?!  Are people being held accountable? Or, as good Canadians, we'll just say that there were no ill intentions and turn a blind eye to incompetence?  Is there any active effort into implementing temporary measures?

I just can't believe this happens in this day and age.  I hope the affected people take the Government to court and wins....


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## Scott (14 Jul 2016)

Here's another one: https://www.localxpress.ca/local-news/i-just-want-my-money-woman-has-gone-three-months-without-getting-paid-by-federal-government-336642


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## Good2Golf (14 Jul 2016)

I'm sure the transition to PHOENIX will be flawless, should the CAF change over from its current pay system(s).


...and folks thought RPSR was a "slightly less than optimal" pay system...

op:


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## marinemech (14 Jul 2016)

i am surprised that the people have not started going after the maker of the problem system...IBM... the old system worked and now the system does not work, and is having rather disastrous effects across the board, will they be held accountable (highly doubt it - likely have protection clause)


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## DAA (14 Jul 2016)

Had a nice chat last week with an elected official and when the topic came up, even they mentioned that their staff were having issues with receiving payments.

I'm not familiar with the new system but I can't see it being too difficult to issue "contingency" and or "cheque" payments similar to the way the CAF works.  There was the odd time where a member on deployment was not paid, the spouse called to inquire and within the hour, someone was knocking on their door to hand deliver a cheque and ready to take them to the bank to cash it if need be.   But in todays systems, it's all DFT.  So whilst the problem can be identified and hopefully resolved quickly, it will still take 2-4 days for the payment to show up in the persons bank account.

It's all about "customer service" and when someone goes that long without receiving payment, there's obviously something wrong and not just with the Phoenix System.


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## captloadie (14 Jul 2016)

I would be shocked if it turns out to be the software. As other's have said, if you work a plain jane vanilla job with nothing that changes and have been there awhile, no issues the system works fine. The issue, from where I sit, and the problems that I am dealing with, all have to do with the process and the individuals implementing it. There aren't enough people to manually input and approve the new hires, overtime, deployments, etc. and answer the phones/e-mails, and learn the new system. 

On our base, the powers that be have authorized several emergency cash payments as advances on pay from the cashier. This was after getting fed up when no one in the CHRO's CoC would sign off on the payments, even though we had an approved process in place from RCAF command.


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## dapaterson (14 Jul 2016)

Is it that the new computer system does not work, or that there are problems in implementing the new processes around the new system?  Are there problems with source HR data that never came out before because data was entered twice - once into the pay system and once into the HR system?  Ultimately, building a single unified system to do HR and pay should result in better quality data in the system, improving service to individuals and reducing the cost of maintaining the system.  But getting from a wide array of different systems with different levels of data quality to a single system is more of a challenge than initially thought.

That said, there do appear to be managers not familiar with their responsibility to look after their subordinates.  If one of my staff was unpaid for months on end, I would be engaging on their behalf, and arranging emergency payments if required.  Stories in the news of folks eating boiled rice three meals a day, or having maxxed out credit cards all because they are not being paid are indications of pay system problems, but also of management and leadership problems that no amount of technology will address.


(For the record: my pay under the new system currently has at least five glitches that I have identified - cancellation of payments, deducting pension contributions on earnings I am not being paid, and lack of withholding of certain deductions.  I'm not in a dire situation by any stretch of the imagination, though.)


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## captloadie (14 Jul 2016)

Except only the affected member or a Trusted Source can contact the pay centre. There is actually very little a manager can do, to get an individual their money. We have a cashier here, so we just went ahead and made emergency cash payments, after accessing the risk. But, there are very few other departments that can do something like this. Nobody can produce local cheques anymore, and very few organizations have petty cash. And, for casual employees and students, there is no way to recover the funds if any overpayments are made, so in a risk averse organization, that is a factor.


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## DAA (14 Jul 2016)

captloadie said:
			
		

> Except only the affected member or a Trusted Source can contact the pay centre. There is actually very little a manager can do, to get an individual their money. We have a cashier here, so we just went ahead and made emergency cash payments, after accessing the risk. But, there are very few other departments that can do something like this. Nobody can produce local cheques anymore, and very few organizations have petty cash. And, for casual employees and students, there is no way to recover the funds if any overpayments are made, so in a risk averse organization, that is a factor.



Interesting.  Two separate systems as far as I know.  How do you plan on recovering your "advanced" payments from the civilian employee once they do get paid?


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## captloadie (14 Jul 2016)

They are two separate systems. We gave him an advance on his pay, using a CF52 I believe, and paid him in cash. The expectation is he will bring in the funds to repay the advance on his pay once the lump sum comes in. Yes, there is risk, but there are methods to submit a pay debit against indeterminate civilian pay if he doesn't. Sometimes you need to do what is right.


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## dapaterson (14 Jul 2016)

Managers can do little directly, but they can put pressure upwards.  They can gather information to push it higher so that their supervisors, directors and directors general know the scope of the problem and the people whose lives are being affected.  Which, of course, lets the affected employee know that someone is on their side and making more efforts on their behalf.

Or they can sit back and think that it's someone else's problem to resolve.

Interesting that despite all the "Blueprint 2020" and other feel-good buzzwords about embracing new tools for communication, a quick look at the twitter feeds for the Clerk of the Privy Council, the ADM at PSPC responsible for Phoenix and her second in command shows... nothing.  Not a word.  A comms lockdown, it would appear...

https://twitter.com/Clerk_GC https://twitter.com/brigitte_fortin https://twitter.com/rosannadipaola


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## runormal (15 Jul 2016)

Personally not having any problems, but definitely are issues in my organization/government wide.

A good buddy of mine went from a casual to indeterminate in the same job/department (different position #/team) He hasn't been paid in almost 2 months. He got an emergency payment, but he has been living off his savings.

I feel that there are multiple problems:

- Rolled out too quickly (# of departments/lack of testing) http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/government-expanding-new-pay-system-to-67-departments-despite-fact-its-been-a-disaster-so-far
- Under-specified in requirements (Haven't researched this, but giving IBM the benefit of the doubt, and knowing that there are a lot of special situations within the government)
- Centralization of pay services at the same, while cutting pay advisers from most organizations (http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/miramichi-public-service-pay-centre-staff-struggling-with-workload-1.3126806)

While I work the standard 7.5/day 35 hours a week and have no leave/benefits as a casual, it has "worked" for me . The biggest gripe I have for leave is I can't officially request/report it until the week of, so if I want to book something off in two months in advance, yes I can ask my manager but I can't physically book it off until that week. With the old system I would of just requested it and pay would have processed it and no issues there. Seeing how some people haven't been paid for months, I'm not going to bitch to loudly at this.


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## Colin Parkinson (15 Jul 2016)

I suspect Be a "team player and stop being so critical" is a major factor in this. No one is willing to stand in front of the cart and say "it's not ready"


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## blackberet17 (15 Jul 2016)

Adding to runnormal's points:

- hiring of almost entirely new staff to work the Pheonix pay system - the majority of the personnel working in the regional pay systems were let go, and new staff hired in Miramichi. This was partly as compensation for Miramichi losing the gun registry;
- failure to take care and correct the glitches as they occurred and pay services were switched over; these were ignored, and more and more departments were switched over.


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## dapaterson (15 Jul 2016)

PSPC has quietly set up a web page to provide updateson addressing pay issues.  It's at: http://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/remuneration-compensation/paye-centre-pay/mise-a-jour-phenix-phoenix-updates-eng.html


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## Good2Golf (15 Jul 2016)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> PSPC has quietly set up a web page to provide updateson addressing pay issues.  It's at: http://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/remuneration-compensation/paye-centre-pay/mise-a-jour-phenix-phoenix-updates-eng.html




Yay!  Success!  PSPC AND SSC on the issue!   Green square on a status dashboard!  Huzzah!!!


*What we've heard**What we've done**Progress made*Performance issues in some departments to authorize large number of transactions in Phoenix.	 
PSPC and Shared Services Canada are reviewing to fix urgently.*Resolved*.



   :


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## blackberet17 (15 Jul 2016)

Jesus help us. Shared Services? Almost as dysfunctional and poorly initiated as...well, PSPC.


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## marinemech (27 Jul 2016)

Spoke to my Friend in Miramichi, and he says some Manager have just walked out(never to return) and dumped it onto their subordinates. Internally they are trying to see if they can start trying to migrate small groups at a time to the old system without approval from higher up as they see it as a more productive use of their time. Says every Third file he comes across is screwed up; and one in 20 are so bad no one wants to touch them (being the employee owes the government thousands in over payments or people are owed thousands in payments)


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## George Wallace (15 Sep 2016)

OK!  Let's "PASS THE BUCK":

Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.



> Lack of training, not Phoenix, responsible for pay issues, tribunal hears
> Ashley Burke · CBC News
> 
> *Union accuses senior official of 'blaming everybody else, except the pay system itself'*
> ...



More on LINK.

NOTE:  This page is a work in progress, so CBC will be amending it from time to time.


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## Lumber (15 Sep 2016)

George Wallace said:
			
		

> OK!  Let's "PASS THE BUCK":
> 
> Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.
> 
> ...





> "She even went as far as to blame people coming back from disability," added Aylward."That's unconscionable. How can you blame the victims because they're not getting paid. That is totally unacceptable. She is failing to acknowledge any of the issues."



FFS, just because you're disabled doesn't mean you are incapable of making mistakes.

In the reserve world, if someone didn't get paid because they didn't fill out a pay sheet, that's not the problem of the pay office, the pay mangers, or the pay system (RPSR); the problem is with the member not filling out their damn pay sheet!

Now, I do agree that the AADM is passing the buck on way too much. If we never bothered to even tell our newest recruits that to get paid they need to fill out a pay sheet, than that's a problem with leadership and the chain of command; but, it's still not a problem with the pay system itself. However, if you're going to be instituting a brand new pay system, that the people in charge of that pay system really REALLY need to drive home the teaching points.

Sadly, it sounds like this Chris Aylward won't be happy with any finding of the tribunal unless it results in heads rolling, and I feel the public mob is the same way.


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## dapaterson (15 Sep 2016)

As a user of the system, I have the following observations:

1.  Information is not presented in ways that is usable.  For example, most public servants are paid annual rates of pay.  The pay statements from Phoenix do not show that information; rather, they show bi-weekly rates, which must be multiplied by 26.088 to figure out the annual rate.

2.  Year to date information only appears on the most recent pay statement.  Should you choose to access a historical pay statement, YTD information is not shown.  It is odd that pay statements show different information depending on when you access them.

3.  There is no explanation of transactions on your pay.  One would think that a new pay rate, or the cessation or commencement of an allowance would warrant a mention or explanation on the pay statement, but there is nothing shown.  The only solution is to call a pay advisors somewhere in New Brunswick, but since they do not answer calls but instead call back based on some system of triage, you're pretty much out of luck if you need an explanation of something on your pay.

4.  Pay calculations are incorrect.  A few examples: I have seen people paying into the wrong pension accounts; people having double pension payments charged on current service; people having acting pay rates miscalculated - even to the point of being paid rates of pay that don't exist; and people having pension contributions withheld from a retroactive payment, but then not having that retroactive payment paid out.

5.  The training materials showed a different system configuration from the live system.  This has been corrected somewhat, but it was initially quite disconcerting to have key links from the training materials not existing in the production system.


Any system is not merely software - it's people, processes, information and systems coming together to deliver an effect.  It's clear that PSPC had a narrow focus on computer systems, and did not give a great deal of attention to other areas of the federal payroll system.  Data integrity is always an issue in migrating between computer systems; again, from the public testimony, it does not appear that any particular attention or effort was made to clean up the data before going live.


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## Colin Parkinson (15 Sep 2016)

From many years ago, one of our seaman had fiscal issues when he mentioned that $600 every 2 weeks was not enough, we said "you should be getting $960 every 2 weeks". Digging through the codes we realized he was getting dinged for both BC and Quebec tax at the same time, for over a year. When we complained to compensation they tried berating him for showing us his paystub. He finally got a big payback, but seriously not doing their job and getting mad when people complain. I see that attitude still runs through them to the top.
I hope these people that get screwed on pay and get reimbursed over the next calendar year demand amended T4's.


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## NSDreamer (15 Sep 2016)

I have zero faith these days when it comes to it, I'm now responsible for over a hundred civilians and have been dealing with it for months and 99% of time the only thing I can tell them is to pray. 

With the start of GWCC starting, I'm actually counselling people not to make pay deductions because the best phoenix people can tell us is they think they can have it working for charity deductions in December, maaaybe January.

This has been a pretty demoralizing thing


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## Good2Golf (15 Sep 2016)

Very weak showing by senior PS leadership... :not-again:

Maybe one day EX-04/EX-05s will accept some responsibility...this is a poor showing indeed.  Perhaps is EX-level public servants had PMA's that could actually result in negative bonuses (aka 'penalties'), they would accept greater responsibility in return for their $150K+ salaries?

G2G


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## daftandbarmy (15 Sep 2016)

Good2Golf said:
			
		

> Very weak showing by senior PS leadership... :not-again:
> 
> Maybe one day EX-04/EX-05s will accept some responsibility...this is a poor showing indeed.  Perhaps is EX-level public servants had PMA's that could actually result in negative bonuses (aka 'penalties'), they would accept greater responsibility in return for their $150K+ salaries?
> 
> G2G



I can see a form letter that PS staff might use to deluge their MPs and MLAs... but hey, that's just me....


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## Colin Parkinson (16 Sep 2016)

Good2Golf said:
			
		

> Very weak showing by senior PS leadership... :not-again:
> 
> Maybe one day EX-04/EX-05s will accept some responsibility...this is a poor showing indeed.  Perhaps is EX-level public servants had PMA's that could actually result in negative bonuses (aka 'penalties'), they would accept greater responsibility in return for their $150K+ salaries?
> 
> G2G



Not really seeing any leadership on the issue, panic running around in circles and finger pointing


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## Good2Golf (16 Sep 2016)

Colin P said:
			
		

> Not really seeing any leadership on the issue, panic running around in circles and finger pointing



I don't know who didn't get the training, but I can tell you that the training (PS' own online training) that I took as a military manager of server public servants and that the PS employees themselves undertook, appeared more than sufficient for them to be capable of keeping an eye on their pay...if they actually were payed.  There is an issue here more of the responsible organizations (PWGSC/PSPC) appearing to not have properly planned, tested and implemented the roll-out and integration of Phoenix into the PS HR/pay system.  For some very senior leaders to say "it was HR operators' faults for not inputting things in correctly" shows a complete lack of accountability by leadership, even at this late date well into a very problematic implementation, for the problems.  I bet you there would be more demonstrable action if may of these EX-level leaders' own pay was being impacted the way the rank and file has been.

:not-again:

G2G


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## SupersonicMax (16 Sep 2016)

I hope those responsible (at all levels) are held accountable for the botched implementation and fired.  The incentive not to do sub-par should be that you get to keep your job.  Bonuses should be kept for the ourstanding and above/beyond kind of work.


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## CountDC (18 Sep 2016)

lol - more likely promoted and given bonuses.


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## George Wallace (18 Sep 2016)

SupersonicMax said:
			
		

> I hope those responsible (at all levels) are held accountable for the botched implementation and fired.  The incentive not to do sub-par should be that you get to keep your job.  Bonuses should be kept for the ourstanding and above/beyond kind of work.



I imagine their bonus' for getting the number of subordinates contributing to the Unite Way is greatly affected, as well.


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## childs56 (19 Sep 2016)

In the reserve world, if someone didn't get paid because they didn't fill out a pay sheet, that's not the problem of the pay office, the pay mangers, or the pay system (RPSR); the problem is with the member not filling out their damn pay sheet!

In the Reserve world it was not unheard of to not be paid for six months when you first joined up. Lots of excuses but little action. It was also not un common to go on a Class B contract and be paid incorrectly or not for a few pay periods. The same for a Class C Reservist. The system always fell back on to the "it is up to the individual Soldier to ensure their pay s correct".  fair enough. I remember argueing with the Orderly room, I had a Soldier not paid for 2 months, they blamed him for the lack of pay. Turns out a Clerk messed up the paper work. Yet it was the Soldiers fault. 

This is how they have always done things. If a Clerk messes up very little to nothing is done to discipline the person. Yet it is the individual who suffers the mess up. 

To be honest if you have Soldiers not signing a pay sheet who are in attendance it tells me that your not doing doing Roll call at the start of training. I always made sure my Troops signed the pay sheet. I also made sure I dealt with pay issues quickly and always went to the IC and demanded immediate results. 

I have to think the new pay system for the public service is having issues with more then the individual is not doing it correctly. The truth will be some where between blame the individual for the problem and blame the Supervisor. With little to no blame on the program itself.


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## Lightguns (19 Sep 2016)

"To do it over again, I would have made training absolutely mandatory," she said.

So they took surplus employees from another government software boondoggle, The Firearms Program, *AND* put them to work in the new pay system *AND* didn't think they needed mandatory training in one of the most illiterate areas of Atlantic Canada.


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## McG (19 Sep 2016)

Looks like government is winning the image game with this.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-meeting-constituency-office-1.3766790

At least, this time they did.


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## gryphonv (19 Sep 2016)

Good on the PM. But he still made sure to get some photos.


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## Loachman (19 Sep 2016)

CTD said:
			
		

> I have to think the new pay system for the public service is having issues with more then the individual is not doing it correctly. The truth will be some where between blame the individual for the problem and blame the Supervisor. With little to no blame on the program itself.



The website is not user-friendly. It is user-belligerent. It must have cost a lot more money to design something that hideous.


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## Loachman (19 Sep 2016)

gryphonv said:
			
		

> Good on the PM. But he still made sure to get some photos.



Priorities...


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## NSDreamer (19 Sep 2016)

Good2Golf said:
			
		

> I don't know who didn't get the training, but I can tell you that the training (PS' own online training) that I took as a military manager of server public servants and that the PS employees themselves undertook, appeared more than sufficient for them to be capable of keeping an eye on their pay...if they actually were payed.





			
				CTD said:
			
		

> I have to think the new pay system for the public service is having issues with more then the individual is not doing it correctly. The truth will be some where between blame the individual for the problem and blame the Supervisor. With little to no blame on the program itself.



Right so, as a military manager, and keep in mind I am accountable for over a hundred civilians, I was in NO way adequately trained. 

If you had 9-5 Civilian employees with no special things on their file you might be lucky. I had people returning from sick leave who just never got added to phoenix, and so were never paid. I had people who were on variable shifts whose entire schedule kept getting reverted to 1 hour a week no matter how many times we changed it back. I had no ability to enter into Phoenix and had to do everything through pay compensation enquiry system whose online documented processes are far from complete which leads to multiple submissions for the same file. I, and my staff, spent literal days as in periods collected equalling greater then 48 hours on the phone with their people, the pay office, the enquiry people, phoenix and eventually the treasury board.

Please do not deflect this on management, or on the civilians. Yes, some people could probably have done better, but this was an extremely poorly executed move. When the pay centre begged the government to stop transferring files 4 months after launch, the department ignored it and transferred 80 000 more. My team has been furious because they have being told there is nothing they can do and its a waiting game as we have members who are simply not being paid. It also doesn't help that when we issue the Emergency pays, we are being told they will all be deducted off the first normal pay rather then being spread out. So if 3 months of emergency pay comes off your first pay all at once you get paid an amazing 0$ again as the back pay will apparently be coming separately.

Don't get me starting on leave with income averaging folks being screwed over with clawbacks...

Right...getting worked up /end rant


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## Ostrozac (19 Sep 2016)

Not to mention the hash that Phoenix has done on MATA/PATA benefits. Not only is messing with new parents wholly loathsome, but screwing with people's pay and benefits based on their family status is probably in violation of the Canadian Human Rights Act.


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## Good2Golf (19 Sep 2016)

NSDreamer said:
			
		

> Right so, as a military manager, and keep in mind I am accountable for over a hundred civilians, I was in NO way adequately trained.
> 
> If you had 9-5 Civilian employees with no special things on their file you might be lucky. I had people returning from sick leave who just never got added to phoenix, and so were never paid. I had people who were on variable shifts whose entire schedule kept getting reverted to 1 hour a week no matter how many times we changed it back. I had no ability to enter into Phoenix and had to do everything through pay compensation enquiry system whose online documented processes are far from complete which leads to multiple submissions for the same file. I, and my staff, spent literal days as in periods collected equalling greater then 48 hours on the phone with their people, the pay office, the enquiry people, phoenix and eventually the treasury board.
> 
> ...



NSDreamer, I had a small number of PS civilians with established career streams and no exceptional elements to their pay situation, so I think that my training (yes, it was not anywhere near the most comprehensive on-line training I've ever taken) was sufficient to understand the transition overall and more importantly to have a rapport with my civilian team members.  That said, the fact that I and every other military manager had no direct visibility to our civilian subordinates' specifics because we did not have a PRI, and thus not electronically 'engagable' in the case of any Phoenix system is but one of the overall issues with the roll-out.

I find it deplorable that executives are trying to portray mis-management on the part of users, managers and HR operators, while the executives, "upon reflection" might have considered (more involved) training as mandatory...  :  Jeez, ya think???  :not-again:

I also find it strange that the executives say it's only a training challenge, yet in the next breath, note how the Phoenix will need $50M at least, to fix the system.  Those two positions are pretty much diametrically opposed, IMO.

I hope that the Public Service Labour Relations Board tribunal was not as far as the senior PSPC leadership is going to be "held to account"...

:2c:

Regards,

G2G


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## NSDreamer (19 Sep 2016)

I wonder if anyone has said "Yes this was a good idea" ... ???


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## Lightguns (20 Sep 2016)

NSDreamer said:
			
		

> I wonder if anyone has said "Yes this was a good idea" ... ???



I worked on AITIS Project from 1995 to 2000, 1993 to 1999 was building a working prototype in stages adding the first users in 1997.  1999 to 2008 was building the system as a functional model that reflected the organization of army training and could be multi platform.  Even now it is not perfect BUT it just moved to ACIMS (SharePoint) from Documentum as I retired so it did fit as a multi function platform.  Talking with the AITIS folks, the move was very smooth and the Army National Calendar is finally part of AITIS (which was planned in 1994).  But that gives you an idea how long it should take to make a successful custom application on an enterprise scale integrate smoothly.  One thing we did do was reams of user training, much of it in user location and face to face for the initial training. Training should always be a lot of hand holding.  Now if they would only build the infrastructure to serve every training video from a central location, we could say mission accomplished.


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## Lumber (20 Sep 2016)

Lightguns said:
			
		

> I worked on AITIS Project from 1995 to 2000, 1993 to 1999 was building a working prototype in stages adding the first users in 1997.  1999 to 2008 was building the system as a functional model that reflected the organization of army training and could be multi platform.  Even now it is not perfect BUT it just moved to ACIMS (SharePoint) from Documentum as I retired so it did fit as a multi function platform.  Talking with the AITIS folks, the move was very smooth and the Army National Calendar is finally part of AITIS (which was planned in 1994).  But that gives you an idea how long it should take to make a successful custom application on an enterprise scale integrate smoothly.  One thing we did do was reams of user training, much of it in user location and face to face for the initial training. Training should always be a lot of hand holding.  Now if they would only build the infrastructure to serve every training video from a central location, we could say mission accomplished.



ACIMS.... I shudder every time a link takes me to that..."thing". It's even less user friendly that the new standardized web pages for the rest of the military (such as the new Defence Team and RCN home pages).I could write a whole page of complaints about ACIMS, but I don't want to hijack this thread.


----------



## Good2Golf (20 Sep 2016)

Uh-oh...   "Houston?  We have a problem!"

"Phoenix Down..."
Reproduced under the Fair Dealings Act



> *Phoenix pay system down across federal public service*
> Public Service and Procurement Canada investigating cause of outage, spokesperson says
> CBC News Posted: Sep 20, 2016 9:36 AM ET Last Updated: Sep 20, 2016 10:00 AM ET
> 
> ...


----------



## Journeyman (20 Sep 2016)

Good2Golf said:
			
		

> Public Service and Procurement Canada investigating cause of outage, spokesperson says


Perhaps someone brought in an outside contractor...... www.dyingwithdignity.ca


----------



## Occam (20 Sep 2016)

Loachman said:
			
		

> The website is not user-friendly. It is user-belligerent. It must have cost a lot more money to design something that hideous.



If that holds true, then I'm sure I'd be gobsmacked at how much DRMIS must have cost us.


----------



## Lightguns (20 Sep 2016)

Occam said:
			
		

> If that holds true, then I'm sure I'd be gobsmacked at how much DRMIS must have cost us.



Neither are websites, they are content management systems designed to serve documents not propaganda.  There is simple user paced training for both which should be mandatory but again isn't, so some folks have issues doing their jobs in ACIMS/DRMIS.


----------



## Colin Parkinson (20 Sep 2016)

Websites became a real pain to deal with. It’s almost impossible to change things in a timely manner and getting everything translated costs huge amounts of time and money. Funny yesterday, looking at a 125 page document with almost no maps, apparently all the title blocks need to be translated, even when the maps are submitted by an outside proponent, so it’s easier not to have maps to get the document posted, except that maps really help the end users who on this coast don’t give a crap about the French. I spend a great deal of time trying to help clients find stuff on our website. Many of our pages are just endless loops. The only good thing they did was to make them google friendly.


----------



## McG (20 Sep 2016)

It is surprising that there has only been one lawsuit launched so far.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/phoenix-lawsuit-ottawa-darrel-delisle-1.3766028


----------



## dapaterson (22 Sep 2016)

CBC is reporting that, given two independent reviews of Phoenix prior to go-live, the staff at PSPC decided to give the minister the rosier one. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/minister-not-briefed-on-independent-phoenix-analysis-1.3773148

In reading the CBC story, it appears that at go live the system had never been tested end-to-end; there was no detailed test plan; and there was no fallback plan if rollout didn't work.

Anyone with project management experience feel free to chime in, but that does not sound like anything that respected PMBOK.


----------



## daftandbarmy (22 Sep 2016)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> CBC is reporting that, given two independent reviews of Phoenix prior to go-live, the staff at PSPC decided to give the minister the rosier one. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/minister-not-briefed-on-independent-phoenix-analysis-1.3773148
> 
> In reading the CBC story, it appears that at go live the system had never been tested end-to-end; there was no detailed test plan; and there was no fallback plan if rollout didn't work.
> 
> Anyone with project management experience feel free to chime in, but that does not sound like anything that respected PMBOK.



Sadly, this is pretty standard for big IT projects from what I've seen. 

Only yesterday, in fact, I was having coffee with one of the 'little people' in a giant systems project going on right now, that we have been involved in from the periphery. She was brought in to act as the 'voice from the field' but has been steamrolled by all the suits with the letters after their names. The Project Manager, of course, has tight timelines to meet so is ignoring pretty much anything, like what the field and clients actually need, because it interferes with the 'milestone deliverables' (there's a free buzzword for you). 

She is convinced it will be a train crash when, and if, it gets launched. Price tag? 10s of millions of $ of course.

If they had only hired us  https://www.berlineaton.com/blog/how-to-lead-great-big-it-projects-4-tips-for-project-champions-


----------



## Lightguns (22 Sep 2016)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> CBC is reporting that, given two independent reviews of Phoenix prior to go-live, the staff at PSPC decided to give the minister the rosier one. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/minister-not-briefed-on-independent-phoenix-analysis-1.3773148
> 
> In reading the CBC story, it appears that at go live the system had never been tested end-to-end; there was no detailed test plan; and there was no fallback plan if rollout didn't work.
> 
> Anyone with project management experience feel free to chime in, but that does not sound like anything that respected PMBOK.



Funny, we cant get a thing past the departmental RFC committee without a back out plan in place.


----------



## c_canuk (22 Sep 2016)

yeah, cause you're a little person who can only see the little details, those in the ivory towers can see everything so they don't need to follow the rules. bigger view is always better, never mind the loss of detail, they can see everything![/sarcasm]

also, this seems about right with the finger pointing.

http://dilbert.com/strip/2013-09-20


----------



## Colin Parkinson (23 Sep 2016)

So my Manager just advised me that no one is getting their acting pay, because if they add your acting pay for say a 1 week period, your pay will completely stop once that 1 week period ends. The local compensation clerks are keeping records they will input when Phoenix is fixed..........


----------



## dapaterson (23 Sep 2016)

Thus far, my experiences with Acting Pay have been different.  I have seen:

1. Retro acting pay put on a separate payment, where pension contributions were deducted, but the retro pay not paid out.

2. Acting pay at the base rate of the higher classification for the acting period, which is less than the substantive rate of pay.  Or, in other words, do the job of the boss and take a pay cut.

3. Acting pay at a higher rate of pay that does not exist anywhere on the pay table, because they are applying the 4% rule instead of the "next higher incentive with a minimum increase" rule.


Of course, pay statements don't show your annual rate of pay, so if you're not conversant with the conversion factor from biweekly to annual, you may not notice that your pay rate is wrong.


----------



## The Bread Guy (7 Feb 2017)

Meanwhile, to play on the old saying, technical briefings will continue until morale improves ...


> Members of the media are invited to a technical briefing on the latest steps taken to address issues with the Phoenix pay system.
> 
> Date: February 8, 2017
> 
> ...


----------



## dapaterson (7 Feb 2017)

So how, exactly, does someone get a one-time payment in error of $662,777?  Are there no reviews in the system?  Did no one look at that number and say "Hey, maybe there's something wrong here - let's investigate before we click OK?"

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/phoenix-overpayments-ottawa-70-million-1.3969455


----------



## Remius (8 Feb 2017)

I love how they are saying to just hold onto it for now. 

It affects taxes just a bit I would think...

On the flip side you could just let it sit and gain interest I guess.

What a fiasco.


----------



## Oldgateboatdriver (8 Feb 2017)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> So how, exactly, does someone get a one-time payment in error of $662,777?  Are there no reviews in the system?  Did no one look at that number and say "Hey, maybe there's something wrong here - let's investigate before we click OK?"
> 
> http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/phoenix-overpayments-ottawa-70-million-1.3969455



The real issue here is: How come FINTRAC didn't automatically clic in and wonder where that money was coming from and started an investigation into the Federal government for money laundering?  ;D


----------



## tree hugger (8 Feb 2017)

I've had a host of personal issues with phoenix/pay centre.  MY current problem is being paid approx. $400/pay less than I should (since mid Nov).  When you call the pay centre, they are glorified message takers and cannot provide any info.  The "compensation advisors" are mysterious people who know one knows and you just have to believe they'll call you back....eventually.... :


----------



## Eye In The Sky (8 Feb 2017)

tree hugger said:
			
		

> The "compensation advisors" are mysterious people who know one knows and you just have to believe they'll call you back....eventually.... :



Oh, you are assuming they are people... ^-^


----------



## Occam (8 Feb 2017)

I live in Ontario, and work in Quebec.  These are the final pay statements for the 2015 and 2016 years, showing YTD totals.  Phoenix took over in early 2016.  The Phoenix team assures us that Phoenix did not change anything regarding tax deductions at source and that all is well...we beg to differ.


----------



## dapaterson (8 Feb 2017)

Overall, the amount looks about the same (roughly $15K in taxes); it's just the apportionment that's different.  And since you put it all on one return, it should be (more or less) a wash.


----------



## dapaterson (8 Feb 2017)

And now, Phoenix performance and service standards:

http://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/remuneration-compensation/paye-centre-pay/mise-a-jour-phenix-phoenix-updates-eng.html

My take on it: They are claiming a capacity of 100K transactions per month.  In January, there were about 77K extra-duty payments processed.  Therefore, there is capacity to reduce the backlog by 23K transactions per month.

There are currently 290K transactions backlogged beyond the service standard date.

Therefore, to clear the current backlog will take 290k / 23K months, or 12 1/2 months - in other words, the current backlog will not be cleared until March, 2018.


----------



## Occam (8 Feb 2017)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> Overall, the amount looks about the same (roughly $15K in taxes); it's just the apportionment that's different.  And since you put it all on one return, it should be (more or less) a wash.



That's what we're hoping.  It's the Phoenix team claiming that they didn't touch deductions of taxes that has us shaking our heads.  Someone broke something in the transition...


----------



## dapaterson (8 Feb 2017)

Occam said:
			
		

> That's what we're hoping.  It's the Phoenix team claiming that they didn't touch deductions of taxes that has us shaking our heads.  Someone broke something in the transition...



Or, possibly, fixed it - unless you were filing two returns in the past, you don't know - maybe they were getting the amounts wrong between Fed and Quebec in the past.


----------



## Occam (8 Feb 2017)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> Or, possibly, fixed it - unless you were filing two returns in the past, you don't know - maybe they were getting the amounts wrong between Fed and Quebec in the past.



Nope, we verified the 2015 figures against our returns - Fed tax should be slightly higher than QC tax.  We also verified it against some friends working for other Fed gov't departments in QC.  The Phoenix numbers are wrong.  It appears to be unique to those of us living in ON but working in QC.  Something got programmed incorrectly.


----------



## dapaterson (8 Feb 2017)

Occam said:
			
		

> Nope, we verified the 2015 figures against our returns - Fed tax should be slightly higher than QC tax.  We also verified it against some friends working for other Fed gov't departments in QC.  The Phoenix numbers are wrong.  It appears to be unique to those of us living in ON but working in QC.  Something got programmed incorrectly.



Phoenix make a mistake?  That's unpossible.

That's like telling me that during an acting assignment, I should have been paid at a rate of pay from the collective agreement, and not a rate that someone in Miramichi made up.


----------



## The Bread Guy (30 Aug 2017)

Am I the only one skeptical about trying to lure pay-fix specialists into a system where their proposed incentive pay may be tied up in the system they have to fix?  Or is it too much like the attached Dilbert comic?


> Struggling to make improvements to its troubled pay system, Ottawa is now offering financial incentives to attract qualified employees to address the Phoenix program.
> 
> The Treasury Board made the announcement today by news release, saying it will offer one time payments of $4,000, temporarily increase overtime rates from time and a half to double-time and temporarily drop restrictions on the amount of vacation that compensation advisors can carry over.
> 
> ...


From the Treasury Board info-machine:


> The Government of Canada’s compensation advisor community is integral to the ongoing development and maintenance of the public service pay system. Employees, including those in the HR community, have been working hard to resolve pay-related issues.
> 
> Today, the Government of Canada announced it will be providing an incentive package to enhance the recruitment and retention of compensation advisors to address pay administration system issues related to the implementation of Phoenix.
> 
> ...


----------



## CountDC (18 Sep 2017)

Dear public service workers - please push harder on the fixing of Phoenix.  Latest word is we need you to have it fixed by 2020 when the plan is for the military to join you on the system as treasury board thinks we all should share in the misery.  Hopefully in that 3 years you will be able to finally force the government to fix it so my pay doesn't get screwed the same as yours.

Thank you.


----------



## dapaterson (18 Sep 2017)

There is no intent or appetite to move the CAF to Phoenix.  The prior initiative to do so has been rejected.


My latest Phoenix moment: Printing the same pay stub twice, ten days apart, and having most of the numbers (except the net deposit) change.  Hard to tell if you're being paid correctly when you can't be sure if the numbers are final or not...


----------



## meni0n (18 Sep 2017)

After switching over a month ago, I'm about to get my second pay cheque, still not able to login to CWA, pension centre doesn't see me in their system and can't enrol in PSHCP. Somehow I got paid but I am not in the system....


----------



## dapaterson (18 Sep 2017)

Once you get your second Phoenix pay you should be able to get a myKey generated, and then start accessing your pay statements at least.

EDIT to note: Looking at your profile, I strongly recommend you find a pension expert.  If you transferred Reg to Res, you're still in the Reg F pension plan, which means that every day that goes by now counts as two against your 35 year limit - and if it's a day you don't work class A, it's a day out of your 35 year max that you'll never, ever get a pension benefit for.  When you're in CFSA part I and PSSA at the same time, your maximum pension decreases rapidly.


----------



## meni0n (18 Sep 2017)

I already got a myKey. Can't login and no one can tell me why.

Also, trust me I've tried getting some pension advice but  I've called about 10 times the Pension centre and got a different answer every time. From my last conversation, everything is fine, just fill out the PWGSC 2092, pension transfers. Also, told to check my pay statement when I get my first reserve pay to see what my deductions are. I've been telling the unit to hold off on processing any pay for me due that clause where if I start to get earnings and contributing to the CF pension I won't be able to transfer it anymore.


----------



## dapaterson (18 Sep 2017)

For the logon: Try again on Wednesday.  Sometimes it takes two pays through the system before you can access things.  I have no idea why, but sometimes that works.

For pension:You may have to release and re-enrol to trigger the ability to transfer your military pension to the PS.

I will state that there is very little knowledge about Reservists in the Reg F pension plan, even in the pension offices, if you are leaving the Reg F without drawing your pension immediately.


----------



## meni0n (18 Sep 2017)

Thanks I'll try again after tomorrow.

I hope it doesn't come to a release and re-enrol as i am afraid for how long it might take to do all the paperwork to get back in.


----------



## CountDC (18 Sep 2017)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> There is no intent or appetite to move the CAF to Phoenix.  The prior initiative to do so has been rejected.



First time hearing this, last I had about a year ago was that TB had mandated it which totally screwed things up and put us behind schedule on changing systems.  There was no appetite from the military for it then but it looked like we had no say.  Guess someone got tough with them as it was so screwed.


----------



## dapaterson (18 Sep 2017)

CountDC said:
			
		

> First time hearing this, last I had about a year ago was that TB had mandated it which totally screwed things up and put us behind schedule on changing systems.  There was no appetite from the military for it then but it looked like we had no say.  Guess someone got tough with them as it was so screwed.



There's several very long stories in this, most of which are best recounted with appropriate libations in hand.


----------



## daftandbarmy (20 Sep 2017)

milnews.ca said:
			
		

> Am I the only one skeptical about trying to lure pay-fix specialists into a system where their proposed incentive pay may be tied up in the system they have to fix?  Or is it too much like the attached Dilbert comic?From the Treasury Board info-machine:



Sounds like a job for 'Management Consultant Man/Woman'!!!!


----------



## Nfld Sapper (21 Sep 2017)

IBM contract cost for failure-plagued Phoenix payroll system jumped to total $185M
'IBM basically has an open bag of money to help themselves,' procurement expert says
By Julie Ireton, CBC News Posted: Sep 21, 2017 5:00 AM ET Last Updated: Sep 21, 2017 9:54 AM ET


----------



## Rifleman62 (21 Sep 2017)

Could have purchased a couple of F-35's for that amount.


----------



## CountDC (21 Sep 2017)

Phoenix is sounding a bit like the reserve pay system in the 90's - OOPS.

Heard a little bit about the new pay system for the military.  Seems they went through a large and expensive analyst of Phoenix that showed it wouldn't work for us.  Considering it wasn't working for the civilian pay seems to me they could have saved time and money with a simple - see it doesn't work for you, why do you think it would work for us.


----------



## dapaterson (21 Sep 2017)

CountDC said:
			
		

> Phoenix is sounding a bit like the reserve pay system in the 90's - OOPS.
> 
> Heard a little bit about the new pay system for the military.  Seems they went through a large and expensive analyst of Phoenix that showed it wouldn't work for us.  Considering it wasn't working for the civilian pay seems to me they could have saved time and money with a simple - see it doesn't work for you, why do you think it would work for us.



Review was initiated before launch.  No go decision was before the depth of Phoenix failure was known.  PSPC has kept its cards very close to its chest on this one - so bad news was not let out.  Even after the go live, senior (Director+) folks at PSPC refused to acknowledge issues and claimed things were minor.

Not to sy that this was unexpected.  The migration of CAF pension services to PSPC was delayed many times due to the software not being ready.  PSPC was pulling folks away from Pension Modernization to try to catch up with the delays that Phoenix was experiencing, making PenMod late as well.

There needs to be a top to bottom housecleaning at PSPC - the toxic climate where no one is allowed to raise problems, but instead everyone just goes with the flow until they hit an ice floe is what contributed heavily to this epic disaster.  But instead, the mid-level management is intact, spending millions more to address problems they should have seen coming, and continuing to build their empires.


----------



## dapaterson (21 Sep 2017)

Office of the Privacy Commissioner report on Phoenix privacy breaches: https://www.priv.gc.ca/en/opc-actions-and-decisions/investigations/investigations-into-federal-institutions/2016-17/pa_20170608_pspc/


----------



## dapaterson (25 Oct 2017)

The Senate has confirmed it is dumping the beleaguered Phoenix payroll system after 18 months of struggles to ensure its employees are paid properly and on time.

https://globalnews.ca/news/3823943/senate-pulls-out-of-phoenix-pay-system-citing-unnecessary-delays-and-errors/


----------



## daftandbarmy (3 Nov 2017)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> The Senate has confirmed it is dumping the beleaguered Phoenix payroll system after 18 months of struggles to ensure its employees are paid properly and on time.
> 
> https://globalnews.ca/news/3823943/senate-pulls-out-of-phoenix-pay-system-citing-unnecessary-delays-and-errors/



And some people wonder why I reminisce fondly about the time we were able to pay soldiers in cash, every other Friday.

If nothing else, it was good for my ego being able to walk out of the Paymonster's office with upwards of 10 large bulging in my cargo pockets


----------



## jollyjacktar (3 Nov 2017)

daftandbarmy said:
			
		

> And some people wonder why I reminisce fondly about the time we were able to pay soldiers in cash, every other Friday.
> 
> If nothing else, it was good for my ego being able to walk out of the Paymonster's office with upwards of 10 large bulging in my cargo pockets



I do fondly remember being paid cash as well in the early days of my militia time as well as sea pay on ship.  Less fond is remembering the mess/canteen bills that needed to be seen to immediately afterwards.  Sigh...


----------



## my72jeep (3 Nov 2017)

jollyjacktar said:
			
		

> I do fondly remember being paid cash as well in the early days of my militia time as well as sea pay on ship.  Less fond is remembering the mess/canteen bills that needed to be seen to immediately afterwards.  Sigh...


In my days the pay master was the first of 4 at the pay table. #2 was the PMC/mess manager, #3 padre, #4 unit banking officer.


----------



## Gunner98 (4 Nov 2017)

I am upset on behalf of loyal and patient PSC workers. The Phoenix folks said that retroactive and pay increases for Health Services folks would take from 20 Sep - 3 Nov.  Then it is announced on 2 Nov that they are going to need an extension of many weeks to get everyone's accounts topped up.  They have not done everything they could to succeed and failed once again to be transparent.  Surely if you can do it for some, you should be able to do it for all.


----------



## meni0n (4 Nov 2017)

I've been waiting for a few months now to get my pay fixed. It's been broken since I joined the PS. Underpaid by about 20k/year right now. With every pay period that passes by, what they owe me goes up by about 700$.


----------



## dapaterson (4 Nov 2017)

The monthly reports are not particularly honest.  Certain "cases" are declared "Completed", even if the individual affected is still owed thousands of dollars.  But it makes the DM, ADMs, DGs and Directors responsible look less bad, so the lies get pushed out.

Part of this speaks to the fundamental failure of monolithic, single-provider services to the government.  In this case, once the system failed catastrophically, there is no other option available.

It's completely unacceptable that the "responsible" minister has now resorted to statements like  "There will come a time in the future where people will be paid promptly, accurately, and on time."


----------



## meni0n (4 Nov 2017)

The worst is that you're really powerless to try to remedy the situation. The union says sure you can file a grievance but it will not do anything to resolve your issue or get it resolved faster. Can't go to small claims court or any other court to try to get paid what you are owed. If this happened at a private company, the government would be all over them.


----------



## Good2Golf (4 Nov 2017)

Bets that in two months, the PSPC DM still gets her PMA bonus?   :worms:


----------



## Humphrey Bogart (5 Nov 2017)

I see that the Senate has decided to dump Phoenix.  The tabs at the Barefax must have not been getting paid.


----------



## Loachman (5 Nov 2017)

Is that place still open? The last time that I was there was in 1983, after the Connaught Ranges barbecue following The RCR Freedom of the City Parade began to thin out. We tried to get the Colonel-in-Chief to accompany us, but he graciously declined the invitation.


----------



## Occam (5 Nov 2017)

Yep, still open, and probably hasn't changed much.  And still makes the news, though it was a few years ago - http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/brazeau-confirms-hes-working-at-ottawas-barefax-strip-club


----------



## Colin Parkinson (7 Nov 2017)

Just had a small meet and greet for our new staff, one of our guys is owed $12,000, the new employee from IANAC was over paid by $12,000. What they need is a forum where you input your overpayments as credits and people with under payments can post amounts owed, then you can give your credits to the people owed money.


----------



## daftandbarmy (8 Nov 2017)

Where is 'Harry Tuttle, Heating Engineer' when you need him?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dht_3NziwSw


----------



## tree hugger (8 Nov 2017)

I've lost track of how many times they have messed up my pay.  Right now, I'm on long term LWOP and..... I'm still getting paid.... :


----------



## dapaterson (14 Nov 2017)

So, Radio Canada did some off the record interviews & review of leaked documents from the Miramichi pay centre.  It's apparently a toxic workplace, with quantity valued over quality, public humiliation of undertrained workers...

Je vois mes collègues qui se font traiter, on peut dire… comme de la merde.

I see my colleagues who are being treated, you could say... like shit.

https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1065913/formation-employes-miramichi-paye-fonctionnaires


----------



## Jarnhamar (14 Nov 2017)

Why isn't the government doing more to fix it?


----------



## SupersonicMax (14 Nov 2017)

There are now reports that the fix will cost upwards of $1B!  Give me $500M and your problems will be solved within 6 months, easy!  How's that for a deal?


----------



## Oldgateboatdriver (14 Nov 2017)

Jarnhamar said:
			
		

> Why isn't the government doing more to fix it?



Because the government, unlike every other employer in Canada, is not subject to the oversight of one of the Labour Commissions, who would beat the crap out of any employer not properly paying it's employees in matter of minutes, not decades.


----------



## dapaterson (15 Nov 2017)

It wouldn't be a payday for the public service without: Compensation Web Applications - not available

In other words, you can't access your pay stub.


Now, I wonder if PSPC is going to start obeying the Directive on Payments (https://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/pol/doc-eng.aspx?id=32504); it suggests that public servants may be entitled to interest on some late payments: 

Payments: general

4.1
The chief financial officer (CFO) is responsible for the following: 
...
4.1.6
Ensuring that interest is paid when the payment is made later than the due date, as required by contract or statute, or when awarded in legal proceedings against the Crown;


----------



## Colin Parkinson (15 Nov 2017)

Scrap disastrous Phoenix pay system, union head urges Trudeau government
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/phoenix-pay-system-pipsc-union-1.4402415
Give us a year, and we'll build a working replacement for the trouble-plagued Phoenix pay system, one of the country's biggest civil service unions told the Trudeau Liberals on Tuesday.

Tired of months of repeated promises that the system's shortcomings would be fixed soon, the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC) wants the government to scrap the system and start over almost from scratch — a call the government isn't dismissing out of hand.

"After nearly two years of problems with IBM's Phoenix pay system, our members have lost confidence in the promise of fixing Phoenix," union president Debi Daviau said Tuesday.

"Despite all efforts to fix Phoenix, the number of open cases of pay problems has grown to 330,000 as of October 2017 — with no end in sight," said Daviau.


----------



## dapaterson (15 Nov 2017)

Given that a significant element in the Phoenix problems is the lack of experienced and knowledgeable compensation advisors, changing the underlying computer system will merely shift the jockey from one dead horse to another.

The Government model of monolithic central service providers is designed to breed this type of failure, such as SSC - unable to provide IT to line departments that meets their needs; Phoenix - in an effort to meet all payroll requirements became bloated and unworkable, from both a software and a process perspective; or travel services - which does not provide access to all available seat inventory, resulting in lost time and additional costs for travellers.

Is it time to break government out of the statist, bureaucratic mindset, and instead provide departments with the authority (and requirement) to go it on their own, with open and transparent reporting?


----------



## Oldgateboatdriver (15 Nov 2017)

You got that one right, DP:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIto5mwDLxo


----------



## dapaterson (15 Nov 2017)

Oldgateboatdriver said:
			
		

> You got that one right, DP:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIto5mwDLxo



Even a stopped clock is right twice a day... or once a day, if it's a 24 hour clock...


----------



## dapaterson (15 Nov 2017)

Today's comedy: https://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/comm/services-eng.html

PSPC Services

PSPC is Serving Government, Serving Canadians.

Our services provide government with greater knowledge, efficiencies, savings and solutions. We deliver services that are smarter and faster—and at a reduced cost—to improve how government does business.


----------



## Colin Parkinson (15 Nov 2017)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> Given that a significant element in the Phoenix problems is the lack of experienced and knowledgeable compensation advisors, changing the underlying computer system will merely shift the jockey from one dead horse to another.
> 
> The Government model of monolithic central service providers is designed to breed this type of failure, such as SSC - unable to provide IT to line departments that meets their needs; Phoenix - in an effort to meet all payroll requirements became bloated and unworkable, from both a software and a process perspective; or travel services - which does not provide access to all available seat inventory, resulting in lost time and additional costs for travellers.
> 
> Is it time to break government out of the statist, bureaucratic mindset, and instead provide departments with the authority (and requirement) to go it on their own, with open and transparent reporting?




I remember telling my Conservative MP that never did I ever expect a CPC government to come up with 5 year Central Plans just like the Soviets did. They fell hook , line and sinker for the shiny presentations.


----------



## dapaterson (15 Nov 2017)

Colin P said:
			
		

> They fell hook , line and sinker for the shiny presentations.



And hired just enough consultants to blame them when it went awry, but not enough to do the job properly.


----------



## dapaterson (16 Nov 2017)

So the minister for PSPC is sending out a letter to all members of the Public Service, apologizing in advance of an OAG report on Monday.

Interestingly,  the number of outstanding cases is suddenly 520k, not the 260k previously reported.

Were I not short over $10k and increasing with every pay, I might find it funny.  But my sense of haha is gone.

The government may have inadvertently revived the otherwise sedentary organized labour organizations with this colossal collection of foul ups.


EDIT:  Add link: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/letter-pubilc-servants-minister-apologize-phoenix-1.4405943


----------



## meni0n (16 Nov 2017)

I'm in the same boat. With the way things are going, I'm going to start looking for work somewhere else, I'm getting into debt with every pay. This  month what they owe me increased by 2100$. That's just one month...


----------



## dapaterson (16 Nov 2017)

My $10K is $6K - outstanding retro pay; $2K - excess pension contributions from 2016; and $2K - five months of underpayment.


I'm looking forward to writing my letter to CRA "My apologies, I need to amend my 2016 tax filing.  I now owe you taxes on 2K that I shouldn't have deducted (since my employer took it and put it into the pension plan and reported it on my T4, even though I warned them months in advance that I was hitting my maximum time in the plan).  Unfortunately, my employer isn't smart enough to pay me back or issue me a new T4; what's your SOP in this situation?"


----------



## Loachman (16 Nov 2017)

One would actually expect some sympathy, nein? They are fellow victims too.


----------



## dapaterson (16 Nov 2017)

Yes, but then the inevitable questions about "How can you be 47 years old with 35 years of pensionable service" begin, and I'm off down that rabbit hole again.


----------



## Loachman (16 Nov 2017)

You're one of Romeo Dallaire's favourite ex-child soldiers and he's taking a special interest in your case?


----------



## Colin Parkinson (17 Nov 2017)

Not amused at the political finger pointing. The CPC started this ball rolling and the Liberals picked it up and ran with it, knowing it was a stinking pile of crap. They should be doing a joint "we are sorry" rather than than blaming each other.


----------



## dapaterson (17 Nov 2017)

Loachman said:
			
		

> You're one of Romeo Dallaire's favourite ex-child soldiers and he's taking a special interest in your case?



Not quite... simultaneous CFSA Part I and PSSA service means that for one eight year stretch each calendar year counted as two years of pensionable service.  No one in Pensions or Pay knows quite what to do with me.


I did have a nice chat with CRA today.  "Don't worry about it.  Just wait for the employer to sort things out.  Don't try to get ahead of them, since if they don't update your records before you re-file your taxes, someone in audit might flag the discrepancy and you'll have to explain in detail why you're trying to pay more tax."

They are still awaiting direction on how to handle late payment fees and penalties; they know that they will be waived, but don't know if the waiver request will be done by PSPC for all affected people, or if each person will have to request an individual waiver.


----------



## SeaKingTacco (17 Nov 2017)

Handy that all CRA employees are in the same boat too, huh?


----------



## dapaterson (17 Nov 2017)

Except separate agencies like Elections and CRA kept their own compensation staff (who use Phoenix).  So they aren't triaged in New Brunswick by inexperienced staff who have little grounding in compensation.  And they can actually speak to a real person and not go through PAR forms, a help desk that can only send an email on your behalf, or any of the other frustrations that those served by the New and Improved Pay Transformation Initiative enjoy.


----------



## dapaterson (17 Nov 2017)

PSPC reports annually on their performance - you can see the page about Pay & Pensions at: https://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/sc-cs/nsnnnr-ossr/rapports-reports/page-4-eng.html

So, let's see how they're doing...

Upon receipt of completed documentation from clients, the Public service Pay centre will resolve complex inquiries within 20 business days – Deleted

Public Service and Procurement Canada (PSPC) cost per account to administer pay systems and associated processes for all Government of Canada employees (back office) – Deleted

PSPC cost per account to deliver Pay centre services – Deleted
That's right - all the indicators that might show how badly things are going in terms of quality and cost have been Deleted from their scorecard.  

How's that ministerial commitment to transparency and openness going?


----------



## daftandbarmy (21 Nov 2017)

Meanwhile, at the Auditor General's Office:

Audit Report's a comin'......

http://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/bagnall-with-ags-report-on-phoenix-pay-system-looming-has-government-actually-learned-any-lessons


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## dapaterson (21 Nov 2017)

http://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/English/parl_oag_201711_01_e_42666.html

My favourite:

We found that Public Services and Procurement Canada was not tracking errors in pay and did not know how many outstanding pay requests were pay errors that needed to be corrected. The Department told us that the causes and sources of errors are so varied, it is unreasonable to expect it to track and measure them.


----------



## PuckChaser (21 Nov 2017)

When are the EX level pubic servants going to start being held accountable? There should be a house cleaning of everyone at the top who touched this file and f'd it off.


----------



## Colin Parkinson (21 Nov 2017)

LOL an EX getting disciplined or held accountable for a project they managed? Surely you jest, that might lead to an precedent of accountability.


----------



## dapaterson (21 Nov 2017)

I've come up with a solution to the Phoenix fiasco.  I call it "The Montreal Solution":

1.  Stop paying the public service completely.

2.  Permit them to extract as much graft and bribery as the market will bear instead.


----------



## jollyjacktar (23 Nov 2017)

Bruce MacKinnon cartoon on the subject.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/editorial-cartoon/2017-11-23-editorial-cartoon


----------



## dapaterson (27 Nov 2017)

So, according to this morning's pay stub, I am no longer being paid a rate of pay that doesn't exist that's less than my proper rate of pay.

Now, I am being paid a rate of pay that doesn't exist that's more than my proper rate of pay.


----------



## Gunner98 (27 Nov 2017)

If Phoenix was designed to ensure everyone was paid in the same manner, then it is truly failing because the last report said only 50% of the people in the Public Service have had pay issues. Surely it should screw up everyone's pay at least once.

Just a few reminders - http://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/federal-government-rolls-out-new-pay-system

Its original goal was, "... save millions in overpayments to Canada’s public servants and speed up processing that has caused pay glitches and delays", say officials at Public Services and Procurement.

"Phoenix is also the last of the two-stage “pay transformation” that the previous Conservative government initiated in 2009 when it decided to put the pay centre in Miramichi, N.B., as a trade-off for jobs lost when it closed the long-gun registry."

"Despite the delays, she said the project won’t exceed its $300 million budget. It is expected to save $70 million a year beginning this year."

The reality: http://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/outstanding-transactions-at-phoenix-pay-centre-surpass-500-000-says-minister-1.3681382 "The government has so far earmarked $400 million to fix the system and to deal with the existing pay backlog, partly by hiring more pay administrators at centres in Quebec and New Brunswick. But Qualtrough said in an interview aired last weekend that she could not guarantee the amount wouldn't reach $1 billion."

Just Wow!


----------



## Colin Parkinson (27 Nov 2017)

My department has not submitted any acting pay requests in a year, as they are afraid that it will stop peoples pay or start paying them incorrectly. They are recording it manually in order to pay people once things are fixed. So those acting assignment requests won't show up anywhere but are still Phoenix related problems, that's a department of 5,800 people, and it's likely we are not the only ones withholding pay adjustment requests.


----------



## dapaterson (12 Dec 2017)

So here's an interesting wrinkle.  A Canadian HR/Payroll specialist has a blog; in 2013 he wrote about reporting overpayments on T4s.

Money quote:

Employers have to treat outstanding employee debt, resulting from an overpayment made in error, as a low-interest loan. As with any other no or low-interest loan, employers must report a taxable benefit, calculated on prescribed interest rates.

https://alanrmcewen.com/2013/12/18/t4-reporting-for-overpayments/


EDIT: CRA link: https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/forms-publications/publications/t4130/employers-guide-taxable-benefits-allowances.html#P887_111004

A loan can include any other indebtedness such as the unpaid purchase price of goods or services, or an overpayment of salary that your employee repays you over a period of time.

The taxable benefit the employee receives in the tax year is the total of the following amounts:
a.the interest on each loan and debt calculated at the prescribed rate for the periods in the year during which it was outstanding
b.the interest on the loan or debt that was paid or payable for the year by you, the employer (for this purpose, an employer is a person or partnership that employed or intended to employ the individual and also includes a person related to the person or partnership)
c.minus the total of the following amounts:
 the interest for the year that any person or partnership paid on each loan or debt no later than 30 days after the end of the year
d.any part of the amount in b) that the employee pays back to the employer no later than 30 days after the end of the year
Note
 Sometimes these rules do not apply. For more information, see Exceptions.

If the employee receives a loan or incurs a debt because of employment, report the benefit in box 14, "Employment income," and in the "Other information" area, report the interest benefit under code 36. Report any forgiven loan principal amounts under code 40.


----------



## Lumber (12 Dec 2017)

Wait wait wait.

So, if my employer accidentally over-pays me, I owe the government money because I received a taxable benefit in the form of an unwanted, unsolicited, mistakenly awarded, "no or low-interest" loan? 

I have more to this if the answer is yes.


----------



## dapaterson (12 Dec 2017)

Lumber said:
			
		

> Wait wait wait.
> 
> So, if my employer accidentally over-pays me, I owe the government money because I received a taxable benefit in the form of an unwanted, unsolicited, mistakenly awarded, "no or low-interest" loan?
> 
> I have more to this if the answer is yes.



That is what the rules appear to say.  However, I am not a tax lawyer.  But the confusion being generated by Phoenix continues to grow...


----------



## Colin Parkinson (12 Dec 2017)

Keel hauling, Yardarm, just saying......

quote; "“_Currently 76 per cent of our employees have outstanding cases and 100 per cent of seagoing employees are affected,” wrote Deputy Fisheries Minister Catherine Blewett. The Coast Guard is an agency within the Fisheries portfolio_."

https://ipolitics.ca/2017/12/11/wernick-combing-public-service-ideas-fixing-phoenix/


----------



## dapaterson (12 Dec 2017)

Colin P said:
			
		

> Keel hauling, Yardarm, just saying......
> 
> quote; "“_Currently 76 per cent of our employees have outstanding cases and 100 per cent of seagoing employees are affected,” wrote Deputy Fisheries Minister Catherine Blewett. The Coast Guard is an agency within the Fisheries portfolio_."
> 
> https://ipolitics.ca/2017/12/11/wernick-combing-public-service-ideas-fixing-phoenix/



Wow!  100%!  I'm certain someone is going to find a way to spin that into an impressive performance metric to get more bonus pay.


----------



## Gunner98 (12 Dec 2017)

Recent chats with employees who have contacted their union stewards and several levels above them, they were told there is no recourse that the unions foresee being taken at this time - no work stoppages, work-to-rule, strikes.  There has been and will be occasional letter writing campaigns and protests.  Much like the PARs and complaints in regards to pay issues, they will go unnoticed because the government does not care about its public servants any more than they do about the uniformed members.

I wish the news/response was in the words of Russell Peters father, "somebody gonna get hurt real bad"!  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3EjFgWlW2w

Instead it sound more like Rascal Flatts - Let it Hurt lyrics:

"Seven forty two in the morning
Eight seconds before it all sinks in
Put your best face on for the world
Fake another smile and just pretend
But you're just puttin' off the pain
Nothing's ever really gonna change"


----------



## Lumber (12 Dec 2017)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> That is what the rules appear to say.  However, I am not a tax lawyer.  But the confusion being generated by Phoenix continues to grow...



So, if it's a taxable benefit, let look at it this way.

Government over pays me $2000 at 0% interest.
The CRA assume that that is a taxable benefit. Had I taken a loan from the bank, I'd pay, lets say, 5%.
Amortize that over the year, compounded monthly, and the total interest owed would be $102.32.
So, the CRA is saying I received a "taxable benefit akin to $102.32 ".
Using the Federal and Provincial tax rates for my income level, that works out to about $38.02 that I would owe the government in taxes.

Ok, so I take the $2000 and invest in in a GIC at 2% and walk away with $2,040.37, earning a net of $2.35. Yay for me. 
But GICs are locked it. What if they claw the $2000 back before it reaches annuity?
Ok, so invest in a Mutual Fund instead. Same amount of work, potentially higher rate of return. Oh wait, you picked the wrong one and you actually just lost money. 

I can't believe they would expect the average joe to go through all this over a few dollars taxes.

Even if they accidentally _doubled _my salary, it works out to roughly $2000 in taxes.

Hurrah for the small guy.


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## dapaterson (3 Jan 2018)

Deputy minister letters on what they are doing to deal with Phoenix are now posted  to the PSPC website at:

http://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/remuneration-compensation/services-paye-pay-services/centre-presse-media-centre/lettres-dm-dm-letters/index-eng.html


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## Good2Golf (4 Jan 2018)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> Deputy minister letters on what they are doing to deal with Phoenix are now posted  to the PSPC website at:
> 
> http://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/remuneration-compensation/services-paye-pay-services/centre-presse-media-centre/lettres-dm-dm-letters/index-eng.html



Interesting that PSPC DM Lemay takes a dive on the most critical of her Department's 3-pillars, Administration of Govt Pay - i.e. Phoenix itself

*DM PSPC's letter to the Clerk of the Privy Council
*


> Dear Mr. Wernick:
> 
> In response to your letter which we received on November 2, 2017, I am pleased to provide you with Public Services and Procurement Canada’s (PSPC) current and upcoming efforts toward HR-to-Pay stabilization.
> 
> ...



So essentially they've provided the following in the DM's letter:

*REPORT: PSPC efforts to support HR to pay stabilization*


> This infographic depicts the 3 pillars of PSPC’s work.
> 
> Pillar 1: Administrator of Government pay
> 
> ...




Not sure how that seems professional or acceptable?

Regards
G2G


----------



## Oldgateboatdriver (4 Jan 2018)

I read some of those DM letters (not all).

What a bunch of CYA bull. I dare anyone here to actually take one letter - any one and actually explain exactly what is being done in any given department and how it is actually fixing anything. And their release through the press centre is proof that all this is is public relation stunt, trying of all things to pull wool over the eyes of civil servants on how, in a crisis, the civil service screws things up instead of resolving it while waiting for the crisis to subside (as if they didn't know!).

Those letters are typical upper crust civil service bumf that make it sound like activity is going on and improperly equates that with achieving something. In short, and to quote Zed about those higher civil servants: "You are everything we've come to expect from years of government training".

If real people's pay and lives weren't at stake it would be funny in exposing governmental incompetence at dealing with crisis.

Where are the real answers to the real questions: Who is fixing Phoenix, or working on implementing a replacement that will work? When do they expect to be done? How much will it cost? When will all the cases arising from it be resolved? Who will be held accountable for the screw-up? Are we going to sue the contractor who developed it (or not as it would expose that they merely took the garbage they were given by the government itself)?


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## dapaterson (4 Jan 2018)

Pay is a process, not a computer system.  The failures are systemic through that process (including the computer system).  Thus the reticence to reveal anything of substance - the emperor has less than no clothes, and no bureaucratic organization will ever willingly disclose their own incompetence.  Far better to spend more public money to hide it.  (That the major PS union, PSAC, has been largely silent is due primarily, in my opinion, to their realization that they stand to gain more members as the Government continues its disorganized scramble to throw more money at the problems in the absence of anything resembling a plan).

As a friend observed "I'm owed over $18,000; if I were to take that money I'd be a criminal.  Somehow, those who have never paid me are not criminals."


My personal opinion?  It's time to eliminate most central service organizations within the public service (pay, travel, IM/IT).  They present significant institutional risk; as we see with Phoenix, failure is catastrophic.  Monopolies (whether public or private) increase cost and stifle innovation.  Imagine if every department sought out payroll services independently.  There would be a marketplace, where innovation would occur and there would be competition on quality and price.  If the payroll system for National Defence failed, they could adopt/adapt the one used by Global Affairs Canada.


But muddle on is the end state.  Meanwhile, I'm owed on the order of $10K (before taxes), with no indication of when I will be paid; no indication that the Government will comply with its own Directive on Payments (that is to say, payment of interest on overdue accounts); for one of my problems, they closed it as "complete" to run up their metrics, and sent a letter saying "We know we owe you money, but we don't know how to pay it back".

Long term institutional impacts are severe - there's a major erosion of trust between employees and the employer.  I'm expecting some sort of work action(s), timed to embarrass the government - whether wildcat strikes; a "sick of Phoenix" sick leave day across the public service; or some other actions to keep this in the public eye.


----------



## dapaterson (4 Jan 2018)

One further thought: A strike would in some ways be striking at the Government at their most vulnerable place.  Imagine if the PS did a half-hour walkout.  That would be ~250,000 people whose pay would have to be docked.  That's 250,000 transactions that would have to be processed... in Phoenix - or roughly three months of the pay office's processing capability (which PSPC claims is 80,000 cases per month).


----------



## Oldgateboatdriver (4 Jan 2018)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> Long term institutional impacts are severe - there's a major erosion of trust between employees and the employer.  I'm expecting some sort of work action(s), timed to embarrass the government - whether wildcat strikes; a "sick of Phoenix" sick leave day across the public service; or some other actions to keep this in the public eye.



I am not sure a "wildcat" strike would even be considered a strike.

There was an old joke under the communist rule of Eastern Europe: "As long as they pretend to pay us, we'll pretend to work".

Being paid for work is the single underlying basis of any work contract. So it wouldn't even be a "strike" or "labour action" if employees simply told the government "You don't pay me, I don't come in to work".


----------



## Colin Parkinson (6 Jan 2018)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> Pay is a process, not a computer system.  The failures are systemic through that process (including the computer system).  Thus the reticence to reveal anything of substance - the emperor has less than no clothes, and no bureaucratic organization will ever willingly disclose their own incompetence.  Far better to spend more public money to hide it.  (That the major PS union, PSAC, has been largely silent is due primarily, in my opinion, to their realization that they stand to gain more members as the Government continues its disorganized scramble to throw more money at the problems in the absence of anything resembling a plan).
> 
> As a friend observed "I'm owed over $18,000; if I were to take that money I'd be a criminal.  Somehow, those who have never paid me are not criminals."
> 
> ...



Having gone from DFO to TC, DFO pay was horrible and screwed up. TC pay office was switched on, responsible and supported by management by ensuring that any positions had proper funding and no funky stuff going on. DFO was using capital monies to pay salary at times, a big no-no. I pointed out to our DM last month that the fix is bringing back our old pay system. They said the issue then is where it interacts with Phoenix. They don't realize this is a flightless dodo that will never rise from the ashes.


----------



## dapaterson (23 Jan 2018)

For fun: Read what PSPC's senior staff were bragging to professional organizations before go live.  

http://www.fmi.ca/media/765533/Rosanna%20Di%20Paola_GoC%27s%20Pay%20Transformation.pdf

I like the "Final Considerations" - Ensure you have solid contingency plans (and funding) in place

 :rofl:  :rofl:  :rofl:  :rofl:  :rofl:  :rofl:


----------



## mike63 (23 Jan 2018)

Well my last day in the PS was yesterday, Jan 22nd, I'm curious to see either how long I will continue to get paid or, now long it's going to take to get my pension!


----------



## tree hugger (24 Jan 2018)

Just checked my acct.  I got paid again today from the PS even though I've been on LWOP since 1Oct... :not-again:

Thought about quitting altogether, but I imagine I'd still be paid in that scenario too... :facepalm:


----------



## Colin Parkinson (24 Jan 2018)

Mike63 said:
			
		

> Well my last day in the PS was yesterday, Jan 22nd, I'm curious to see either how long I will continue to get paid or, now long it's going to take to get my pension!



The advice in my last recent pension course was to get a letter from your manager stating the last day you worked and at what level. The pension office will use that as a baseline to start your pension and make any corrections when Phoenix finally coughs out your last day and pay calculations. They also recommended that your last day coincide with a payday to make payout easier.


----------



## dapaterson (26 Jan 2018)

And, after the year end panic to get everything recorded for people who owe money... "Oops!  The problem is bigger than we thought!"

https://ipolitics.ca/2018/01/26/phoenix-woes-capacity-problems-mean-overpayments-wont-get-processed-time-union-head-says/


Of course, the question of "When will there be a panic to pay people what they are owed?" remains unanswered.


----------



## Colin Parkinson (27 Jan 2018)

What the Union can do is threaten selective striking, aiming at vital stuff or stuff that makes the government money and minimizing impacts on the public and maximizing impacts on politicians, ministers and senior management. Say like IT not fixing blackberry stuff for a few days.


----------



## dapaterson (27 Jan 2018)

Focused strikes, against government priorities or intended to embarrass the government (backdrops for announcements etc) may be the way to go.

Or even schedule a day for the public service to call in sick - #SickOfPhoenix.

But status quo mealy mouthed "We don't like this" efforts by union leadership have done precious little; I expect the next rounds of elections may see more aggressive leadership installed, and a return to a much more tumultuous relaitonship between government and organized labour.


----------



## garb811 (27 Jan 2018)

I don't have any direct report civilians right now but out of curiousity, I took the manager training that is currently being offered online.

All I can say it was eyeopening.  Some of the most basic design and workflow choices they made in the programming of that system guarantees that even in the best case scenario where the system was working 100%, people are doomed to having to escalate their problems to Miramichi, even for something as minor and simple as a new manager not being able to retroactively approve your overtime prior to their arrival.  Ludicrous.

Yeah, our pay system may be from the 1990s but, aside from the occasional hiccup, newer isn't always better.


----------



## Good2Golf (27 Jan 2018)

'Newer', had it been appropriately alpha and beta-tested and implemented in an incremental manner with appropriate training for operators, mangers and users, might have been better.....alas, it would seem now that 'the fix' may end up costing far more than the projected savings, let alone the impact to so many rank and file of the PS.

Regards
G2G


----------



## dapaterson (27 Jan 2018)

There's an artificial lull in departures, as people want to get pay sorted before they leave (did I mention that once you leave or are on leave you can't access your pay information any more?).

Once people either (a) get their stuff sorted out or (b) realize that waiting will do nothing, expect higher than average attrition.  (DND public service attrition is already higher than Reg F attrition - it's going to get worse).


----------



## Oldgateboatdriver (27 Jan 2018)

If Phoenix doesn't know enough about you to pay you right, how would it even know that you have left the civil service.  :Tin-Foil-Hat:

[We need an emoticon that automatically plays the X-Files theme, dammit.]


----------



## dapaterson (27 Jan 2018)

I have one friend whose pay eventually stopped once he retired.  As I recall, it was about four months of both pay and pension, and periodic calls to the pay office, before his income was reduced to a single stream.  And knowing him, he'll repay the slowest way possible - and probably ask for detailed breakdowns in writing, which will only further delay the day of reckoning.


----------



## daftandbarmy (2 Feb 2018)

I just met with a senior civil servant, a truly great leader who cares about their people, who is leaving because they can't help their staff through the Phoenix nightmare. They're getting no support from on high, and no one apparently cares. 

I asked how many other senior leaders were thinking of doing that too and they said "Most of the good people I know." 

Oh.... Canada....


----------



## dapaterson (2 Feb 2018)

It's going to take a DM from a large department to break in public from the party line and call for a new pay system.  Until the senior leadership admits failure, we'll continue to circle the drain.

(From my perspective: you know it's bad when you find yourself saying "Well, it's only $10K they owe me... it could be worse...")


----------



## c_canuk (2 Feb 2018)

I expect this will only be resolved expediently if the PSU calls a general strike.


----------



## Gunner98 (2 Feb 2018)

daftandbarmy said:
			
		

> I just met with a senior civil servant, a truly great leader who cares about their people, who is leaving because they can't help their staff through the Phoenix nightmare. They're getting no support from on high, and no one apparently cares.
> 
> I asked how many other senior leaders were thinking of doing that too and they said "Most of the good people I know."
> 
> Oh.... Canada....



But doesn't the act of walking away and washing your hands of it leave those subordinates with one less person who cares?  Don't great leaders lead throughout and despite the turmoil and despair?  In most cases those subordinates can't walk away and are now leaderless!


----------



## runormal (2 Feb 2018)

daftandbarmy said:
			
		

> I just met with a senior civil servant, a truly great leader who cares about their people, who is leaving because they can't help their staff through the Phoenix nightmare. They're getting no support from on high, and no one apparently cares.
> 
> I asked how many other senior leaders were thinking of doing that too and they said "Most of the good people I know."
> 
> Oh.... Canada....



Wouldn't now be the time for this individual to go all in and out and "put their neck on the line"? 

If your career is over, wouldn't that be that be time to do that?


----------



## daftandbarmy (2 Feb 2018)

runormal said:
			
		

> Wouldn't now be the time for this individual to go all in and out and "put their neck on the line"?
> 
> If your career is over, wouldn't that be that be time to do that?



They pushed as much as they dared, several times, and even supported the public protests here in Victoria.

After banging your head against the wall for 2 or 3 years you get a little shell shocked, I would imagine.


----------



## runormal (2 Feb 2018)

daftandbarmy said:
			
		

> They pushed as much as they dared, several times, and even supported the public protests here in Victoria.
> 
> After banging your head against the wall for 2 or 3 years you get a little shell shocked, I would imagine.



I suppose, I guess it isn't that simple.

We've very high profile go "toe to toe" with shared services, but still.

Shared Services Canada was a battle chief statistician couldn't win
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/shared-services-canada-was-a-battle-chief-statistician-couldnt-win

Canada's top cop said it would be 'reckless' to keep using federal government's IT service
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ssc-rcmp-it-public-safety-1.4373232

U.S. consultants slam Shared Services Canada for failing projects
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/shared-services-canada-it-gartner-consultants-email-brison-harper-management-1.4143071


----------



## mike63 (5 Feb 2018)

Colin P said:
			
		

> The advice in my last recent pension course was to get a letter from your manager stating the last day you worked and at what level. The pension office will use that as a baseline to start your pension and make any corrections when Phoenix finally coughs out your last day and pay calculations. They also recommended that your last day coincide with a payday to make payout easier.



Thanks Colin, email request was sent to my supvr for this today.


----------



## dapaterson (7 Feb 2018)

An old one but a good one: CTV collected Phoenix stories from civil servants: https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/community/phoenix-pay-system-under-fire


----------



## Loachman (7 Feb 2018)

... "As for Phoenix employees. Nothing but sympathy, God help them all. I'd have long ago gone on sick leave, quit, sent damning emails to DG's, and mailed dog excrement to phoenix project managers."


----------



## Colin Parkinson (20 Feb 2018)

Listening to my co-worker trying not to throttle someone on the phone, he transferred from EC to us in November, Phoenix is still sending everything to his old e-mail he can't access, he is getting paid the wrong amount, can't access his leave balance, among other issues. Oh what a cluster.


----------



## McG (20 Feb 2018)

https://ipolitics.ca/2018/02/19/pay-system-future-feds-ready-start-looking-phoenix-replacement/

Does that mean hope is gone?


----------



## Colin Parkinson (20 Feb 2018)

Hope gave up when it's pay cheques stopped.......


----------



## PPCLI Guy (20 Feb 2018)

If I had to choose Leave Without Pay over Work Without Pay, I know what I would choose....


----------



## dapaterson (20 Feb 2018)

The beauty of Phoenix is that you can take Leave Without Pay and still get paid...


----------



## Gunner98 (21 Feb 2018)

This is what scares me from the article: "Qualtrough said a working group of ministers is now having preliminary discussions on how a two-track process could unfold. Public servants and unions will be consulted for ideas and she said no staff, money or other resources will be diverted from fixing Phoenix to the second track of looking at new options."  Ministers, preliminary discussion, and could - sounds like firm action to me!

I think it would sound better if Qualtrough and Brison resigned for failing to take decisive action as the Paymaster and general manager should.


----------



## jollyjacktar (21 Feb 2018)

Today is the 2nd anniversary of the Liberal's launch of Phoenix, with no end in sight for cost to taxpayers and public servants or resolution.   

Happy  :trainwreck:  guys.


----------



## dapaterson (23 Feb 2018)

The Citizen has a pretty good history of Phoenix.  Or jump to the bottom and see a nice collection of ATIP'd documents.

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/risks-unheeded-journey-without-end-the-seeds-of-the-tortured-phoenix-pay-project-were-planted-three-decades-ago


----------



## dapaterson (23 Feb 2018)

On a different note: Although officially DND's T4s for civilians are not available in Phoenix until Tuesday, 27 February, mine (at least) has shown up on the CRA My Account page.

And it looks to be more or less correct!


----------



## garb811 (24 Feb 2018)

Saw a slide deck the other day that indicated for "low priority" items, such as acting pay, it could be up to three years before they get around to actioning it.


----------



## Gunner98 (25 Feb 2018)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> On a different note: Although officially DND's T4s for civilians are not available in Phoenix until Tuesday, 27 February, mine (at least) has shown up on the CRA My Account page.
> 
> And it looks to be more or less correct!



DND/Public Service T4s were available for many (if not all) by noon on Friday 23 February 2018.


----------



## mike63 (27 Feb 2018)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> On a different note: Although officially DND's T4s for civilians are not available in Phoenix until Tuesday, 27 February, mine (at least) has shown up on the CRA My Account page.
> 
> And it looks to be more or less correct!



I'm looking at MyAccount right now, but I don't see where you can print off a copy of the T4.  Is that possible or do you have to get it from work?  I retired in Jan and am not at work.


----------



## dapaterson (27 Feb 2018)

At the bottom of the home page there should be a link to your forms.  Follow that, select the year you want, then the type of form you want.


----------



## mike63 (27 Feb 2018)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> At the bottom of the home page there should be a link to your forms.  Follow that, select the year you want, then the type of form you want.



Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.  Yep, I can see that and the forms but it doesn't give me an option to print off the T4, only thing I can do is see the box number, box name and box value.

I guess I'll have to contact my old supvr or HR to see eh.


----------



## dapaterson (27 Feb 2018)

Mike63 said:
			
		

> Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.  Yep, I can see that and the forms but it doesn't give me an option to print off the T4, only thing I can do is see the box number, box name and box value.
> 
> I guess I'll have to contact my old supvr or HR to see eh.



As long as you have all the info you're GTG.  If it's for your accountant, print the CRA page - that should be sufficient.


----------



## dapaterson (5 Mar 2018)

...and today PSPC shut down access to Phoenix, because apparently a bunch of people were getting two pays instead of one.  So, hopefully, employees might get access to their pay statements on payday, Wednesday.

The trainwreck continues...


----------



## Blackadder1916 (6 Mar 2018)

I was reading through a number of threads that accumulated while I was away from computer use and this one caught my attention.  I acknowledge that this particular post pre-dates that and thus is necroposting but some of the assumptions made need correcting.



			
				Lumber said:
			
		

> So, if it's a taxable benefit, let look at it this way.
> 
> Government over pays me $2000 at 0% interest.
> The CRA assume that that is a taxable benefit. Had I taken a loan from the bank, I'd pay, lets say, 5%.
> ...



Yes, an incurred debt to an employer "could" be considered a taxable benefit, but in most cases such as the Phoenix ****-up it would be unlikely.  However, some of the assumptions you made in your calculation are in error.

Interest rate - the CRA would not use a "potential" interest rate comparable to a bank.  They determine the interest each quarter based on the average of rates payable on treasury bonds.  In this quarter the rate is:  1.0%  (It hasn't changed for some time)
https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/news/newsroom/tax-tips/tax-tips-2017/interest-rates-first-calendar-quarter-2018.html


> •The interest rate used to calculate taxable benefits for employees and shareholders from interest free and low-interest loans will be 1%.



Compounding - In determining the taxable benefit accruing from an interest-free or low interest loan (or debt) they do *not* compound. (or at least they never have in the few tax files I've handled with interest free loans) It is a simple application of the interest rate pro-rated for the number of days in the tax year that the loan or debt is outstanding.  So your notional $2000 debt would be $2000 X 1.0% X 365/365 = $20.


----------



## daftandbarmy (6 Mar 2018)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> ...and today PSPC shut down access to Phoenix, because apparently a bunch of people were getting two pays instead of one.  So, hopefully, employees might get access to their pay statements on payday, Wednesday.
> 
> The trainwreck continues...



Meanwhile, in Victoria, all the welfare people are being paid exactly on time, which is a problem for the police:

http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/victoria-police-chief-wants-welfare-cheque-distribution-staggered-to-ease-911-overload

Maybe we could get the BC Ministry of Social Development to take on the payment process for Federal Civil Servants?


----------



## George Wallace (6 Mar 2018)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> ...and today PSPC shut down access to Phoenix, because apparently a bunch of people were getting two pays instead of one.  So, hopefully, employees might get access to their pay statements on payday, Wednesday.
> 
> The trainwreck continues...



So?  None of they have check their bank accounts to verify?


----------



## dapaterson (6 Mar 2018)

George Wallace said:
			
		

> So?  None of they have check their bank accounts to verify?



With Phoenix having as its back-end a random number generator, it's useful to examine your pay statement in advance so you can make arrangements, if need be, when your pay is going to be messed up again.

It's called planning ahead.


----------



## Colin Parkinson (10 Mar 2018)

daftandbarmy said:
			
		

> Meanwhile, in Victoria, all the welfare people are being paid exactly on time, which is a problem for the police:
> 
> http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/victoria-police-chief-wants-welfare-cheque-distribution-staggered-to-ease-911-overload
> 
> Maybe we could get the BC Ministry of Social Development to take on the payment process for Federal Civil Servants?



I think they should phoenix all of welfare......


----------



## mike63 (10 Mar 2018)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> As long as you have all the info you're GTG.  If it's for your accountant, print the CRA page - that should be sufficient.



Update to my situ - received by T4 via snail mail this past week, so I'm not worried about that anymore.  Also, Phoenix pay was stopped right after my retirement date, so my pay has stopped, which is a good thing because of what I have heard about others continuing to get pad after retirement.  Now, I just have to wait until they adjust my pension.


----------



## Loachman (29 Mar 2018)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/phoenix-cost-more-than-one-billion-dollars-1.4594115

Cost of Phoenix federal payroll debacle surpasses $1B

Millions in costs related to troubled pay system weren't included in 2018 budget

Julie Ireton · CBC News · Posted: Mar 26, 2018 6:11 PM ET | Last Updated: March 28

The department in charge of the federal government's Phoenix pay system now says the combined cost of implementing and fixing the ailing program has exceeded $1 billion.

Several weeks ago, CBC News requested an accurate and up-to-date tally of Phoenix costs from Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC).

The department provided a graph explaining all the "investments" it has made in the pay system, but not all the expenditures were included in the federal government's 2018 budget.

They now total $1.192 billion.

The new tally, and the way the government handled its dissemination, has come as a disappointment to some Phoenix watchers.

https://globalnews.ca/news/4111787/bureaucrats-working-under-harper-and-trudeau-rejected-ibms-advice-to-delay-phoenix/

Politics March 28, 2018 7:45 pm   Updated: March 28, 2018 10:55 pm    

Bureaucrats working under Harper and Trudeau rejected IBM’s advice to delay Phoenix

By David Akin  Chief Political Correspondent  Global News

IBM Canada advised federal bureaucrats working for both the Harper government and the Trudeau government to delay the start date for the troubled federal payroll project known as Phoenix, advice bureaucrats working for both administrations could not accept, Global News has learned.

IBM officials were set to testify Wednesday night in front of a Senate committee probing the Phoenix problems, and hours before that testimony, told Global News that the federal bureaucrats leading the project were advised as early as July 2015 that the original target dates to turn the system on in October and December 2015 were too ambitious and that the government should move the start back by about eight months.

“We started offering this advice in July of 2015,” said IBM Canada vice-president Regan Watts. “We continued to give that advice to the government, through July, August, September, December and the early part of 2016, that, in our judgment, the project was not ready to go live.”

But bureaucrats told IBM that payroll specialists had already been given notice that their jobs were being moved and centralized at a processing centre in Miramichi, N.B. That, IBM says, was one of the reasons that bureaucrats said they needed the system to be up and running no later than April 2016

“Ultimately, we’re in the advice business,” said Watts. “We offered our advice to the client and the client made a decision and we supported their decision by making adjustments that were required to support a ‘go live’ on their timeline.”

In July of 2015, when IBM first raised a red flag about the Phoenix project, the ministers in charge of the file would have been Tony Clement and Diane Finley, both of whom are still in the House of Commons as Conservative MPs in Andrew Scheer’s caucus.

But a month after that, in August 2015, there were no more ministers as the country was in the midst of a general election campaign. Phoenix development would have been left to those bureaucrats.

When the Trudeau Liberals won, a new cabinet was not sworn until November 2015.

IBM makes no claims as to what the bureaucrats were telling their political masters but they are being clear on one point: The company was solely responsible for the technology, taking a software product manufacturing by another vendor, Oracle’s PeopleSoft unit, and installing it and adapting it for use by the Government of Canada, which remained, at all times, the project manager for Phoenix.


----------



## dapaterson (29 Mar 2018)

Given that I have printed the same pay statement out twice, ten days apart, and seen radically different numbers, I question IBM's claim that the technical solution is not part of the problem.


----------



## TQMS (26 Apr 2018)

And here we go...

"Quebec judge authorizes lawsuit against federal government over Phoenix pay system
Between 40,000 and 70,000 people could be eligible to join the lawsuit"

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/quebec-judge-phoenix-lawsuit-1.4635310


----------



## Colin Parkinson (26 Apr 2018)

As long as it also names the senior management


----------



## dapaterson (27 Apr 2018)

In the "quelle surprise!" department, the GoC won't know if it properly paid out PSAC members in the last contract (due date was November 2017) until the middle of 2019.

Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) President Robyn Benson said the union was advised that the federal government won’t know whether more than 75,200 public servants covered by its largest contract have even been paid properly before June 30, 2019.

https://ipolitics.ca/2018/04/27/government-cant-confirm-raises-and-back-pay-owed-to-thousands-of-workers-until-2019/


----------



## daftandbarmy (28 Apr 2018)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> In the "quelle surprise!" department, the GoC won't know if it properly paid out PSAC members in the last contract (due date was November 2017) until the middle of 2019.
> 
> Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) President Robyn Benson said the union was advised that the federal government won’t know whether more than 75,200 public servants covered by its largest contract have even been paid properly before June 30, 2019.
> 
> https://ipolitics.ca/2018/04/27/government-cant-confirm-raises-and-back-pay-owed-to-thousands-of-workers-until-2019/



You'd make history of you ever managed to have Phoenix awarded an Ig-Noble prize: https://www.computerworld.com/article/2533563/it-project-management/it-s-biggest-project-failures----and-what-we-can-learn-from-them.html


----------



## Colin Parkinson (30 Apr 2018)

Phoenix is going to have a big impact on fleet personal retention and advancement, 100% of the personal are affected, why would anyone join up at this point? Speaking a to a friend who is a senior officer, there is a huge experience gap between the generation of senior officers retiring with 30 years and new up and coming officers with only 5 years post college to replace them.


----------



## FJAG (22 Sep 2018)

> Ryerson: Fixing Phoenix means fixing management too
> BOB RYERSON	Updated: September 21, 2018
> 
> The government says it will start testing prototypes of replacements for the Phoenix pay system very soon. But have the essential lessons been learned?
> ...



See article here:

https://lfpress.com/opinion/columnists/ryerson-fixing-phoenix-means-fixing-management-too/wcm/7dd8a173-d755-4250-b188-753cffc321cb

 :cheers:


----------



## dapaterson (17 Nov 2018)

Hmm... an internal job posting for the public service has gone up, looking for an ADM at PSPC.


Among the qualifications that are desirable:

EXPERIENCE:

AE1: Experience in administering pay.

AE2: Recent(1) experience in leading large-scale renewal and change management initiatives in a large complex organization.

AE3: Experience in managing transformation and/or delivery of IT-enabled projects.

AE4: Experience in managing horizontal issues of a sensitive nature requiring a high degree of coordination and collaboration.

AE5: Significant(2) experience in consulting, negotiating, collaborating and working on horizontal issues with central agencies and other federal departments or agencies.

Definitions: 
(1) Recent is defined as experience normally acquired within the last five (5) years.
(2) Significant experience is understood to mean the depth and breadth of the experience normally associated with having performed a broad range of various, complex related activities at the executive level over a period of two (2) years.


----------



## SeaKingTacco (17 Nov 2018)

That job posting is pretty much wrote for you!


----------



## daftandbarmy (19 Nov 2018)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> Hmm... an internal job posting for the public service has gone up, looking for an ADM at PSPC.
> 
> 
> Among the qualifications that are desirable:
> ...



How about being a 'victim' of all those things, does that count?


----------



## Nfld Sapper (2 Jan 2019)

Phoenix 'pay pods' show some success, but still no word on overall fix


----------



## SupersonicMax (2 Jan 2019)

Almost 3 years later and still no resolution in sight...


----------



## FJAG (2 Jan 2019)

I spent three years of my life working on a major information management system for JAG which involved working hand in hand with IM Group where the wheels ground slowly and deliberately.

Considering how simple our system was compared to what SSS (or whatever they are called these days) is trying to accomplish with numerous departments and systems, I'm not the least bit surprised that this thing went off the rails and is taking this long to fix.

Quite frankly I'm amazed that any of you are getting paid at all.

 :brickwall:


----------



## Nfld Sapper (25 Feb 2019)

Clearing Phoenix pay backlog could take up to 5 years
System's 'overall stability' is predicted to be at least 10 years away


----------



## dapaterson (25 Feb 2019)

Problems are sufficiently normalized now that a senior executive was heard to say "Well, being owed $10,000 isn't that much".


----------



## daftandbarmy (25 Feb 2019)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> Problems are sufficiently normalized now that a senior executive was heard to say "Well, being owed $10,000 isn't that much".



It would be fun to publish a comparison of the Prime Minister's pay statement with that of a 'junior bugler' who is currently being shafted by Phoenix....

Just sayin'


----------



## Colin Parkinson (25 Feb 2019)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> Problems are sufficiently normalized now that a senior executive was heard to say "Well, being owed $10,000 isn't that much".



Excellent, then he won't mind contributing that amount from his pay to make up the difference.....


----------



## Remius (25 Feb 2019)

daftandbarmy said:
			
		

> It would be fun to publish a comparison of the Prime Minister's pay statement with that of a 'junior bugler' who is currently being shafted by Phoenix....
> 
> Just sayin'



Someone should be in jail over this.


----------



## dapaterson (25 Feb 2019)

Well, someone got an award instead of jail time.  Flashback to five years ago, when this was a success...

https://o.canada.com/uncategorized/public-servant-gets-top-award-for-overhaul-of-pay-pension-systems


----------



## Good2Golf (25 Feb 2019)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> Well, someone got an award instead of jail time.  Flashback to five years ago, when this was a success...
> 
> https://o.canada.com/uncategorized/public-servant-gets-top-award-for-overhaul-of-pay-pension-systems



I wonder if the...


> When up and running, it is expected to save $80 million a year.


...includes the $1000-1500 million ‘reset’ tomget it to work properly? :


----------



## Remius (25 Feb 2019)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> Well, someone got an award instead of jail time.  Flashback to five years ago, when this was a success...
> 
> https://o.canada.com/uncategorized/public-servant-gets-top-award-for-overhaul-of-pay-pension-systems



Thanks dataperson...belly full of hate now. 

This line from that though made me chuckle sardonically.

“This kind of work almost never makes it to the headlines but it sure has made it to the bottom line,” said Harper.


----------



## daftandbarmy (25 Feb 2019)

Remius said:
			
		

> Thanks dataperson...belly full of hate now.
> 
> This line from that though made me chuckle sardonically.
> 
> “This kind of work almost never makes it to the headlines but it sure has made it to the bottom line,” said Harper.



Six phases of a big project

The six phases of a big project is a cynical take on the outcome of large projects, with an unspoken assumption about their seemingly inherent tendency towards chaos. The list is reprinted in slightly different variations in any number of project management books as a cautionary tale. One such example gives the phases as:

1.Enthusiasm,
2.Disillusionment,
3.Panic and hysteria,
4.Hunt for the guilty,
5.Punishment of the innocent, and
6.Reward for the uninvolved.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_phases_of_a_big_project


----------



## Nfld Sapper (5 Mar 2019)

Public servant gets tax agency to back down over Phoenix errors in income assessment
The accident-prone payroll system is leaving mistakes on thousands of T4s


----------



## garb811 (2 Apr 2019)

Guess not everyone is waiting for the new super solution...

Senate set to ditch Phoenix in January


> While the federal government is pumping another half-billion dollars into trying to right the Phoenix payroll-system ship, the Senate will be in its own life raft by next year.
> 
> On March 21, the Senate’s Internal Economy, Budgets, and Administration Committee, which handles legal and financial affairs for the Upper Chamber, approved a Jan. 1, 2020 launch date for its new payroll system, provided by ADP Canada.
> 
> ...



More from The Hill Times at link.


----------



## Haggis (2 Apr 2019)

I was told today, in writing, that I will be receiving my missing acting superintendent's pay from almost three years on May 1st.  So, if I disappear from Army.ca in May it's because the fix failed and the hydro and internet ain't getting paid no more.


----------



## dapaterson (2 Apr 2019)

Haggis said:
			
		

> I was told today, in writing, that I will be receiving my missing acting superintendent's pay from almost three years on May 1st.  So, if I disappear from Army.ca in May it's because the fix failed and the hydro and internet ain't getting paid no more.



But did they say May 1st of which year?

#Loopholes


----------



## Humphrey Bogart (2 Apr 2019)

I don't know how you guys do it everyday, honestly.

I would have quit long ago and gone elsewhere.  Phoenix is an absolutely unacceptable debacle.


----------



## JesseWZ (3 Apr 2019)

Humphrey Bogart said:
			
		

> I don't know how you guys do it everyday, honestly.
> 
> I would have quit long ago and gone elsewhere.  Phoenix is an absolutely unacceptable debacle.



 :ditto: times a thousand. 

I can only assume the unions have something in the works, because I'm utterly flabbergasted there aren't massive walk outs *every single day.* _I'm sorry, I'm not being paid, I don't work._ You want to fire me for not showing up to work? I'll take it to arbitration... good luck explaining to a judge that you fired me because I didn't want to work for negative money.


----------



## dimsum (3 Apr 2019)

Haggis said:
			
		

> I was told today, in writing, that I will be receiving my missing acting superintendent's pay from almost three years on May 1st.  So, if I disappear from Army.ca in May it's because the fix failed and the hydro and internet ain't getting paid no more.



Wait...you haven't been paid in 3 years?  Am I reading that right?!


----------



## daftandbarmy (3 Apr 2019)

Haggis said:
			
		

> I was told today, in writing, that I will be receiving my missing acting superintendent's pay from almost three years on May 1st.  So, if I disappear from Army.ca in May it's because the fix failed and the hydro and internet ain't getting paid no more.



Scre#ed around on May Day. Marx would recommend a revolution....


----------



## Haggis (3 Apr 2019)

Dimsum said:
			
		

> Wait...you haven't been paid in 3 years?  Am I reading that right?!



Nope, I'm not that unlucky.  Three years ago I was an acting superintendent for a couple of months.  I was paid my regular rate but never received my acting pay.  This transaction is for my acting regular hours only.   It may be months yet before I see the OT claimed during that period as well.



			
				dapaterson said:
			
		

> But did they say May 1st of which year?
> 
> #Loopholes



The e-mail did say 2019. it also said I can "expect to see" the hoped for transaction.  No guarantees, apparently.


----------



## Loachman (15 Apr 2019)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/phoenix-overpay-numbers-workers-1.5091809

3 in 4 public servants overpaid by Phoenix

More than 223K federal workers have received too much pay, latest numbers show

CBC News · Posted: Apr 10, 2019 11:46 AM ET

Nearly three-quarters of federal public servants have received too much money on at least one paycheque issued by the Phoenix pay system.

As of January, of the approximately 300,000 workers paid through Phoenix, 223,173, or about 74.4 per cent, had been overpaid at least once between April 2016 and January 2019, according to Gatineau MP Steven MacKinnon, the parliamentary secretary to the minister of Public Services and Procurement.

<snip>

"The crisis is bigger than we thought," said Greg McGillis, executive vice-president of the National Capital Region for the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

<snip>


----------



## dapaterson (15 Apr 2019)

How many underpayments were there in the same time?  What was the value of the overpayments vs the underpayments?

I know in my case, the value of the half dozen or so overpayments is dwarfed by the over two dozen underpayments in that timeframe... to say nothing of the other amounts still owed to me.


----------



## Loachman (15 Apr 2019)

I have no more of an idea regarding that than I have of the accuracy of my own pay, which, as a Casual, is simpler (I think) and should, therefore, perhaps be a little more accurate.

We'll all know in another ten or twenty years.


----------



## Colin Parkinson (15 Apr 2019)

I don't know anyone who got an overpayment, I do know lots who have been underpaid or not paid.


----------



## Loachman (16 Apr 2019)

For some reason, the article focussed more on the "nearly three-quarters of federal public servants (who) have received too much money on at least one paycheque issued by the Phoenix pay system" than those unfortunates who have been underpaid.

It does say later on that "there had been $246 million in overpayments and $369 million in underpayments by Phoenix as of March 31, 2018", or half as much again underpaid than overpaid.

An awful mess, either way, let alone both ways.


----------



## dapaterson (16 Apr 2019)

So, just looked at the latest dashboard.  The backlog (20 March 2019) is down to 248,000!  #KermitTheFrog Yaaaaaaayyyyyyy!  (https://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/remuneration-compensation/services-paye-pay-services/centre-presse-media-centre/tableau-dashboard/tableau-03-2019-dashboard-eng.html)

Let's see how we're doing... ok, the earliest archived report is from 28 June 2017 when there were... 246,000 in the backlog. (https://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/remuneration-compensation/services-paye-pay-services/centre-presse-media-centre/tableau-dashboard/tableau-06-2017-dashboard-eng.html)


So, after the last twenty one months of work, the backlog has grown by 2,000 cases.


----------



## daftandbarmy (16 Apr 2019)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> So, just looked at the latest dashboard.  The backlog (20 March 2019) is down to 248,000!  #KermitTheFrog Yaaaaaaayyyyyyy!  (https://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/remuneration-compensation/services-paye-pay-services/centre-presse-media-centre/tableau-dashboard/tableau-03-2019-dashboard-eng.html)
> 
> Let's see how we're doing... ok, the earliest archived report is from 28 June 2017 when there were... 246,000 in the backlog. (https://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/remuneration-compensation/services-paye-pay-services/centre-presse-media-centre/tableau-dashboard/tableau-06-2017-dashboard-eng.html)
> 
> ...



But the growth rate has slowed, right? #glasshalffull


----------



## Eaglelord17 (16 Apr 2019)

To me it looks like they should just cut the program. Figure out how much everyone makes, and pay them in cheque with a nice printed paystub explaining it as clearly there system isn't working. 

Since everyone would then be paid correctly at the moment, you then go audit everyones pay, one by one, and either pay out what is owed to them or regain what was over paid. Then after that point, fix the program if they want, or get another one. The fact this is still growing is absolutely disgusting and is honestly a national embarrassment. How can you expect our government to run the country effectively if they can't even properly pay there employees?

I don't understand what can be so hard about this as realistically a payment system should be relatively basic and its not like there isn't dozens of reliable options out there to pick from.


----------



## NavyShooter (16 Apr 2019)

I started 4 weeks ago with the PS - 21 Mar.  

This week is my first 'pay' week - since apparently they withhold the first 2 weeks of pay.  

I logged in yesterday morning, I have a 'paycheque' visible in Phoenix - I'm actually able to login, which puts me ahead of my co-worker who started on the same day as I did.  In looking at the paycheque, and comparing with others, I'm only missing the healthcare plan, and the dental plan, which apparently will start at some point in the first 3 months...so it looks like (fingers crossed) I might actually get paid tomorrow...because the direct deposit information looked accurate as well.

That said, there are 3 other people in my section who's pay is messed up - one guy for almost 3 years.  Another guy who was actually getting paper paycheques for almost 2 years...I'm feeling a bit bad if my pay is working correctly, and theirs isn't.  It's kind of a good/bad feeling - I really want my pay to be right, but I feel bad that my co-works pay is wrong.

NS


----------



## dapaterson (16 Apr 2019)

You're paid two weeks in arrears, so your payment dated 17 April covers the period of 21 March - 03 April.  In theory, this means that changes can be actioned in advance of payment and not in arrears.


----------



## Colin Parkinson (16 Apr 2019)

That bit is normal, just track your paycheques and if you both working at the same level, they can use your values to confirm what they aren't getting.


----------



## NavyShooter (17 Apr 2019)

And.....I got a payroll deposit for the expected amount this morning.

I'm actually quite surprised.

But pleased. 

That said, no pension cheque yet, so I'm not a double-dipping civvie yet, just a single-dipper.  ;-)


----------



## daftandbarmy (17 Apr 2019)

NavyShooter said:
			
		

> And.....I got a payroll deposit for the expected amount this morning.
> 
> I'm actually quite surprised.
> 
> ...



Don't get used to it...


----------



## dapaterson (17 Apr 2019)

As long as you never work overtime, never take an acting assignment, never get promoted, and never get a pay incentive increase you're probably golden.

It's change of any sort, especially changes entered late, that derail the Phoenix.





> By the time I get to Phoenix, she'll be rising
> She'll find the note I left hanging on her door
> She'll laugh when she reads the part that says
> I'm leaving 'cause I've left that girl so many time before


----------



## Haggis (17 Apr 2019)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> As long as you never work overtime, never take an acting assignment, never get promoted, and never get a pay incentive increase you're probably golden.



I got paid today!  A number of my co-workers didn't.

Since my acting pay (from 2016) is forecast for 01 May 2019 I may not be as upbeat on 02 May.


----------



## dapaterson (17 Apr 2019)

I once received acting pay a year later.  They very nicely withheld pension contributions for both the prior year and the current year.

I have yet to get that resolved... but it's only been two years...


----------



## NavyShooter (18 Apr 2019)

....and today, I am officially a double-dipping civvie.

I got my pension dropped into my account this morning.  I'm kind of shocked actually!


----------



## dapaterson (23 Apr 2019)

There's new online courses built by PSPC on How To Avoid Overpayments.

Interestingly enough, according to the course there's now a dedicated team to support pay centre workers with pay problems...


----------



## FJAG (28 Apr 2019)

This seems somehow appropriate here.







https://www.seattletimes.com/comics-universal/?amu=/dilbert/

 :cheers:


----------



## dapaterson (28 Apr 2019)

...thus how TBS, whose Information Technology and Human Resources branches failed to provide oversight to the implementation of Phoenix, are now building its replacement...


----------



## dapaterson (8 May 2019)

Info on the tentative Phoenix settlement agreed to by most bargaining agents (less PSAC).

Joint statement: https://www.acfo-acaf.com/2019/05/07/joint-statement-federal-unions-approve-agreement-on-phoenix-damages/?fbclid=IwAR2UHxGCwbMfPvbCd7f23_-CBcLujwpA-Z6lGtyxBo7jvCnhcyKSh8hBYDo

"Eight things you need to know": https://www.pipsc.ca/news-issues/phoenix-pay-system/8-things-you-need-to-know-about-phoenix-compensation-agreement


----------



## daftandbarmy (15 May 2019)

Good news, job security for the people in this department 

Phoenix pay grievances threaten to choke federal labour relations board

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/phoenix-pay-grievances-threaten-to-choke-federal-labour-relations-board


Meanwhile, the payment processes to IBM seem to be working smoothly:

Phoenix cost soars by another $137M, paid to IBM

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/phoenix-costs-137-million-ibm-1.5135545


----------



## Remius (15 May 2019)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> Info on the tentative Phoenix settlement agreed to by most bargaining agents (less PSAC).
> 
> Joint statement: https://www.acfo-acaf.com/2019/05/07/joint-statement-federal-unions-approve-agreement-on-phoenix-damages/?fbclid=IwAR2UHxGCwbMfPvbCd7f23_-CBcLujwpA-Z6lGtyxBo7jvCnhcyKSh8hBYDo
> 
> "Eight things you need to know": https://www.pipsc.ca/news-issues/phoenix-pay-system/8-things-you-need-to-know-about-phoenix-compensation-agreement



interesting.  we'll see what PSAC gets. 

The impact on me has been minimal.  My wife was owed 30,000$.  Was solved recently more or less.  Luckily our finances were strong enough to weather this garbage.

5 days as overall compensation and compensation for sick leave for those affected seems fair to an extent.  it's the case by case issues that are the bigger problem.


----------



## Good2Golf (16 May 2019)

Although a 6900% increase from the initial cost estimate is “not insignificant,” whoever thought you could design and implement a pay management system for $46 per employee should not have any place of responsibility in the organization.
:2c:

Regards
G2G


----------



## dapaterson (27 May 2019)

More information on the Phoenix Compensation Agreement.

https://www.pipsc.ca/news-issues/phoenix-pay-system/phoenix-compensation-agreement-faqs?fbclid=IwAR1Cq5lQWC9gaUMVlz9xQPhRFaqWS8ULZcDdPcvmIAtdwFKonZGVYz4NW1Q

Of interest, members of the various unions will not get a vote  - their leadership has signed the deal as a resolution to grievances; it's not part of the collective agreements.


----------



## dapaterson (13 Jun 2019)

And the compensation agreement has been posted online: https://www.canada.ca/en/treasury-board-secretariat/topics/pay/phoenix-pay-system/damages-caused-phoenix-pay-system.html

Interest to be paid on late payments appears to be between 3.75% and 5% (bank rate plus 3%).  So, to reach the $1500 minimum to be eligible, someone will need to be out between $30-40K for one year (or proportionate amounts over a longer period of time).  Seems to be a rather steep incline, designed to minimize the amount that will actually be paid out.

Of course, there are other grounds for filing claims, but I expect the attitude of "we'll pay you when we feel like it, and nothing is our fault" will persist...


----------



## Good2Golf (14 Jun 2019)

I hope that PSAC and PIPSC members remember this come October. Four years is enough time to do something more than say they’re doing something.


----------



## daftandbarmy (14 Jun 2019)

Good2Golf said:
			
		

> I hope that PSAC and PIPSC members remember this come October. Four years is enough time to do something more than say they’re doing something.



That would be great, however:

"In bureaucratic organizations, those closest to the customer feel least empowered."

https://www.inc.com/new-research-shows-how-damaging-your-companys-bureaucracy-is-do-this-1-thing-to-counter.html


----------



## Remius (15 Jun 2019)

Good2Golf said:
			
		

> I hope that PSAC and PIPSC members remember this come October. Four years is enough time to do something more than say they’re doing something.



True but they certainly remember who caused the mess.


----------



## Colin Parkinson (17 Jun 2019)

They remember that CPC started this ball rolling and that the CPC did "Work Force Adjustment" which was a mess and has mostly been undone by the Libs. I noticed a lot jokes about the Libs and corruption, overspending in the PS before I left. I can remember the visible relief when Chretien was booted by Harper as most of the PS was utterly disgusted by the corruption ongoing at the time. That changed with the Duffy affair. Most of the PS is worried about layoff under the CPC and attacks on pensions, etc. But the PS also realizes that we can't afford to spend at the rate the JT government is doing so. If the CPC gets in I hope it's with only a very slim majority, so they can't go full stupid, because basically both parties end up going full stupid in different ways.


----------



## dapaterson (6 Aug 2019)

Just had a new one: an email from CRA telling me that a prior year tax return had been reassessed.

Seems that the fine folks in the Pay Office made up a new T4 for me for a prior year, and sent it to CRA.

Their business process, however, does not include the step "Tell the person whose T4 you amended".

I guess the lesson learned us that every day I should log in and look at all my prior year tax forms to see if anything new has popped up.


----------



## dapaterson (13 Aug 2019)

In the "but uh... everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?" department, the Chief Information Officer of the Government of Canada, tasked with developing the replacement for the Phoenix Pay System, has quit to go back to working in private industry.

https://www.itworldcanada.com/article/alex-benay-exits-as-canadas-cio-joins-ai-startup-from-ottawa/420700


----------



## daftandbarmy (13 Aug 2019)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> In the "but uh... everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?" department, the Chief Information Officer of the Government of Canada, tasked with developing the replacement for the Phoenix Pay System, has quit to go back to working in private industry.
> 
> https://www.itworldcanada.com/article/alex-benay-exits-as-canadas-cio-joins-ai-startup-from-ottawa/420700



And you thought that he was a big dummy, right?


----------



## dapaterson (19 Sep 2019)

About a month ago, I received a retro payment.  Naturally, no explanation of the calculations.  All I could see was that it covered a period of about eight and a half months.

After asking nicely, they sent a detailed breakdown.   Which also includes the statement that it covers that same date range of 8 1/2 months.

But wait!  The detailed calculations they provide cover a period of just over three years!  So, which is it?  "Hello, client contact centre?"


----------



## dapaterson (19 Sep 2019)

Oh, and that retro payment?  Part of the implementation of the last collective agreement.  Paid out nearly two years after the deadline the Government agreed to.  The last info I can find has the Union still pushing for compensation for that - but even that information is a year and a half old.

http://psacunion.ca/psac-outraged-delays-and-lack-information


----------



## dapaterson (31 Oct 2019)

PSAC has declared that after 810 days, all retro has been paid out.

http://psacunion.ca/two-years-late-federal-government-implements

Funny... I'm still out several thousand in retro from that time, but that's mostly tied to actings never processed... or that they reversed last time they "fixed" my file.


----------



## daftandbarmy (7 Nov 2019)

Awful....  :not-again:

Coroner blames Phoenix pay troubles in public servant's suicide

Linda Deschâtelets’s death by suicide might have been prevented if the flawed Phoenix pay system hadn’t led her to emotional and financial ruin, a Quebec coroner has found.

Deschâtelets died in December of 2017, at age 52. At the time she was struggling with chronic pain and massive mortgage 
payments.

The fear of losing her home weighed heavily on her. In her final text message to one of her sons she said she had run out of energy and wanted to die before she lost her house in Val des Monts.

But Deschâtelets might have lived, says a report from coroner Pascale Boulay, if her employer, the Canada Revenue Agency, had shown a little empathy.

“During the final months before her death, she experienced serious financial troubles linked to the federal government’s pay system, Phoenix, which cut off her pay in a significant way, making her fear she would lose her house,” said Boulay’s report.
“A thorough analysis of this case strongly suggests that this death could have been avoided if a search for a solution to the current financial, psychological and medical situation had been made.”

Boulay found “there is no indication that management sought to meet Ms. Deschâtelets to offer her options. In addition, the lack of prompt follow-up in the processing of requests for information indicates a distressing lack of empathy for an employee who is experiencing real financial insecurity.”

Pay records “indeed show that she was living through serious financial problems and that she received irregular payments since the 
beginning of October 2017,” the coroner wrote.

As well, “her numerous online applications using the form for a compensation problem, in which she expresses her fear of not being able to make her mortgage payments and says that she wants a detailed statement of account, remain unanswered.”
On top of that, she had chronic back pain and sciatica and had been missing work. She was scheduled to get an ergonomically designed work area, but this change was never made even though she waited for months.

Money troubles kept getting worse.

She ran out of paid sick leave, and her department sent her an email to explain that she had automatically been docked pay for taking sick days. “In this same email, she was also advised that in the event that she missed additional days, other amounts would be deducted. No further follow-up with her was done,” the coroner wrote.
That email came eight days before her death.

She was already deep in debt. Her credit rating was very low. And on top of everything else, she had taken out a consumer loan in 2015 to cover her mortgage payments, and the loan agreement specified that she would default on the loan if she missed a single payment. So when Phoenix problems arose, she had nowhere to turn for money.

Deschâtelets was also taking cocaine but this did not alter the fact that she genuinely risked losing her home over her financial problems, the coroner wrote.

“Given the circumstances, it is highly likely that Ms. Deschâtelets felt trapped” and ended her life “because of her belief that she would lose the house anyway. It was only a matter of time.”

The situation is “even more sad” because CRA still had advisers on site who dealt with Phoenix issues, and could meet with employees instead of making them deal with the pay centre in New Brunswick, Boulay wrote.

“The federal government does a lot of promotion of workplace wellness. Surprisingly, these wellness measures are silent on the subject of financial insecurity at work,” Boulay wrote.

CRA provided this newspaper with a statement Thursday evening writing:

“We are deeply saddened by the death of any valued member of our community and we again wish to offer our sincere condolences 
to Ms. Deschâtelets’s family and loved ones.

We are carefully reviewing the coroner’s investigation report, and the recommendations made in it, and we will review our processes and approach accordingly.

The CRA cannot provide more comments on this topic at this time”

The National Standard of Canada on Psychological Safety in the Workplace, developed by the Mental Health Commission of Canada, is only voluntary for the federal government. Boulay wrote that following it “would allow for serious reflection on how to do human resources and compensation services in the federal government.

The national president of PSAC said Thursday the case illustrates the mental toll of Phoenix, where there is still a backlog of 228,000 employees with wrong paycheques.

“We fully agree with what this coroner is recommending, in making it mandatory for the federal departments to follow the Canadian standard for psychological safety in the workplace,” Chris Aylward said.

“It’s a terrible tragedy. We know. We did a cross-country tour… and we heard from our members right across the country, saying they are at the breaking point,” not only being paid the wrong amounts, but not knowing in advance what the next paycheque will be.
“We did a survey of our membership … and 76 per cent of our members said the Phoenix fiasco has affected their mental health.”
“It highlights unfortunately the stress and the mental fatigue that our members have gone through and continue to go through because of Phoenix.”

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/coroner-blames-phoenix-pay-troubles-in-public-servants-suicide


----------



## dapaterson (2 Jan 2020)

#PeakPSPC

Today I decided to send in a note to the folks who run one of the three ways to view your pay as a public servant: There's Phoenix proper (aka Government of Canada customized PeopleSoft payroll North America); there's a new interface called MyGCPay that actually includes a fair bit of useful information presented in a way that's easily understood; and there's the Compensation Web Applications (CWA) which is generally more useful than Phoenix in providing some details of what's actually in your pay.

Last payrun (last week) I received seven paycheques - my regular pay (at the correct rate for the first time in over 2 1/2 years!); two small retro payments; and four zero paycheques, each one representing a different correction of past errors.  (Sidebar: If you were paid at the wrong rate in the past, Phoenix can't do a "Pay the difference" transaction; rather, they have to cancel the prior payment and then two weeks later issue the correct payment).

However, the CWA paycheque list only shows one of the four zero pays I received.  So, I clicked on the handy "contact us" link, clicked on the smail address on that page (rather than calling in the issue), typed up an email explaining what happened, clicked "send"... and within seconds got an automated reply: Error 550, which means "hey, guess what, that email address doesn't exist".

I guess that's one way to reduce the number of complaints: give out an email address that doesn't exist.


----------



## dapaterson (2 Jan 2020)

And in the "ongoing pursuit of excellence" department, there's a phone number as well as an email address provided.  Upon dialling the number, I received that old favourite reply "We're sorry the number dialled is not in service.  Please check the number or try your call again.  This is a recording."


----------



## dapaterson (11 Jan 2020)

Should be a fun 2020.  So far this year, I have been issued updated T4s for 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2016 again.  And it's not even two weeks into January.

Oh, and the business processes for Phoenix are such that I only found out about this by accident; there's nothing to alert you that a new T4 was issued and sent to CRA.  You may not learn about it until CRA tells you that they have reassessed your taxes.


----------



## Bruce Monkhouse (11 Jan 2020)

This must be some kind of 60's style LSD human experiment.....except the goal is to see how far they can try a groups patience before they either snap, or band together and rise up to fight/overthrow.


----------



## daftandbarmy (12 Jan 2020)

Bruce Monkhouse said:
			
		

> This must be some kind of 60's style LSD human experiment.....except the goal is to see how far they can try a groups patience before they either snap, or band together and rise up to fight/overthrow.



The Golden Handcuffs are a powerful sedative


----------



## daftandbarmy (18 Feb 2020)

Or, IOW, when insult meets injury....


Information about 69,000 Phoenix pay system victims sent in error

More than 69,000 public servants caught up in the Phoenix pay system debacle are now victims of a privacy breach after their personal information was accidentally emailed to the wrong people, says Public Services and Procurement Canada.

The problem-plagued electronic payroll system has improperly paid tens of thousands of public servants since its launch in 2016. Some employees have gone months with little or no pay, while others have been overpaid, sometimes for months at a time.

As the government has struggled to fix the system, Public Services and Procurement Canada has been sending departmental heads of human resources and chief financial officers reports every two weeks listing employee overpayments.

Earlier this month, a report naming 69,087 public servants was accidentally emailed to the wrong federal departments.

The report included the employees' full names, their personal record identifier numbers, home addresses and overpayment amounts.

More than 161 chief financial officers and 62 heads of HR in 62 departments received the report in error, according to a statement posted to Public Services and Procurement Canada's website on Monday.

The department said it took steps to contain and destroy the information and notified the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

It also said affected employees will be notified in the coming days. The department has stopped the distribution of overpayment reports pending the results of the investigation.

"Our government takes privacy concerns and the protection of personal information very seriously and it is top of mind in the work we do at PSPC," said Minister of Public Services and Procurement Anita Anand in an email to CBC News.

"We will take steps to ensure that this does not happen again and fully reevaluate the way in which personal information is stored and used."

Public Services and Procurement Canada isn't the only department to accidentally breach the confidentiality of workers' personal information.

According to figures recently tabled in the House of Commons, federal departments or agencies mishandled personal information belonging to 144,000 Canadians over the past two years.

Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien has long called out "strong indications of systemic under-reporting" of privacy breaches across government.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/phoenix-pay-system-privacy-breach-1.5466855?ref=mobilerss&cmp=newsletter_CBC%20British%20Columbia_472_1168


----------



## BeyondTheNow (18 Feb 2020)

Insult to injury indeed...

My husband has been waiting over 2yrs for monies owing. In addition to Phoenix and other concerning matters, working without contracts since OCT 2016 is a major point of contention.

The strike vote for UTE (_Union of Taxation Employees_; part of _PSAC_ for those unaware) is 03-MAR-20. Shawinigan started voting yesterday, and subsequent voting is scheduled almost every day until 01-APR. It's expected to be a result in favour of striking. Should that be the case, hopefully it doesn't actually come to that and parties reach an agreement before strikes begin, like what occurred 4yrs ago.

We can’t afford him receiving strike pay.


----------



## daftandbarmy (18 Feb 2020)

BeyondTheNow said:
			
		

> Insult to injury indeed...
> 
> My husband has been waiting over 2yrs for monies owing. In addition to Phoenix and other concerning matters, working without contracts since OCT 2016 is a major point of contention.
> 
> ...



Just wondering... has anyone launched a class action Charter challenge, or something like that, over Phoenix yet?


----------



## dapaterson (18 Feb 2020)

The PSLRA stacks the deck against federal employees, severely limiting their ability to act.  An underlying assumption of the act is Good Faith; I don't think anyone ever thought the GoC would / could behave this badly.


----------



## daftandbarmy (18 Feb 2020)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> The PSLRA stacks the deck against federal employees, severely limiting their ability to act.  An underlying assumption of the act is Good Faith; I don't think anyone ever thought the GoC would / could behave this badly.



Pffftttt.... there's nothing like an outraged, really smart, personal injury lawyer who is wound up tight and pointed in the right direction  ;D


----------



## dapaterson (18 Feb 2020)

Currently there is an action for unrepresented employees.  But when you write the laws that govern labour relations, they oddly enough end up somewhat one-sided.

(One could compare the immediate outrage, closure of rail traffic, temporary shutdown of international border crossings within days... with the un-reaction of public service unions, years in - perhaps even note that if one side refuses to play by the rules, the other side might want to make similar decisions)


----------



## Attie3 (18 Feb 2020)

I looked into the class action. It's only for casual employment and students. Any terms or perms are not able to join the class action as we have the  grievance process. 

For my case, it didn't help at all. I ended up just going on a payment plan. 

Sigh..

Sent from my SM-G955W using Tapatalk


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## Colin Parkinson (19 Feb 2020)

The union could act by take limited strike action, taking out key employees so the various choke points form. In a perfect word, withdraw IT and Admin support for the Executives and up. they can enter their own pay and travel.


----------



## BeyondTheNow (19 Feb 2020)

Curious: Does anyone know what program other gov employees (the Senate) are using to administer pay, since they had the lovely alternative of opting out of Phoenix due to all the issues the program was having/creating? Did they simply return to the former one? Why can't the same pay system be used across the board, and why weren't other federal employees given the same option. (That last part was rhetorical...)


----------



## dapaterson (19 Feb 2020)

I seem to recall seeing that the Senate dropped their plan to leave Phoenix; my guess is they hired additional compensation staff (since they are not on the "Miramichi - your call is important to us" support plan).


The good news is that the CAF did not move to Phoenix, despite some studies and attempts and gentle persuasion several years ago.


----------



## BeyondTheNow (19 Feb 2020)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> I seem to recall seeing that the Senate dropped their plan to leave Phoenix; my guess is they hired additional compensation staff (since they are not on the "Miramichi - your call is important to us" support plan).
> 
> 
> The good news is that the CAF did not move to Phoenix, despite some studies and attempts and gentle persuasion several years ago.



Ah okay. I hadn't heard/seen anything further regarding the switch from Phoenix, so assumed it went ahead as broadcasted. But yes, it must be nice to be _above_ the standard service levels us average, middle-class folk are accustomed to.

We've talked about the issues a lot around the office, as one of our civvy employees is a union head. We've thanked our lucky stars quite a few times...


----------



## daftandbarmy (19 Feb 2020)

Colin P said:
			
		

> The union could act by take limited strike action, taking out key employees so the various choke points form. In a perfect word, withdraw IT and Admin support for the Executives and up. they can enter their own pay and travel.



Oh.... you're good  :nod:


----------



## Good2Golf (19 Feb 2020)

Global Affairs has a different system for its foreign staff


----------



## OceanBonfire (6 Mar 2020)

> *Phoenix replacement chosen for testing*
> 
> _Germany's SAP chosen from short list to test replacement for troubled pay system_
> 
> ...


----------



## dapaterson (7 Mar 2020)

"We're taking all your favourite parts of DRMIS and adding them to the pay system."


----------



## daftandbarmy (7 Mar 2020)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> "We're taking all your favourite parts of DRMIS and adding them to the pay system."



“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.”   Bill Gates 

https://cmc-canada.ca/blog/Our%20Blog/how-to-lead-great-big-it-projects-4-tips-for-project-champions


----------



## Nfld Sapper (7 Mar 2020)

Sounds sort of like: "First rule of assassination. Kill the assassin."


----------



## BeyondTheNow (10 Jul 2020)

Apparently the union is still in talks to also make the payment tax-free. Not a cure-all, but it’s something.

 Union says feds agree to $2,500 payout for workers affected by Phoenix pay system



> OTTAWA -- The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) says it has reached a deal with the federal government to compensate 140,000 public service workers over Phoenix pay system related damages. All eligible members of the largest federal public service union who have been directly or indirectly impacted by the problem-plagued federal payroll system, are set to receive a $2,500 one-time payment.
> 
> The compensation includes money for the late implementation of collective agreements over the years when the government was trying to get the program under control. The payments are broken down by year, with $1,000 for fiscal year 2016-17 and $500 for each of the three years since.
> The union says all members paid through the system are eligible to claim each designated amount for each year in which they were employed, including former federal workers or their estates.
> ...


----------



## Remius (10 Jul 2020)

To be honest I was ok with the 5 days one time leave allotment but this is better as it is more fair and everyone gets the same thing.

Plus 6.35 % over the last three years is more than fair given the climate. Bodes well for the CAF that should see something comparable. 

I haven’t seen the fine print in some of the benefits like mat/pat leave but it looks good.


----------



## BeyondTheNow (10 Jul 2020)

Remius said:
			
		

> To be honest I was ok with the 5 days one time leave allotment but this is better as it is more fair and everyone gets the same thing.
> 
> Plus 6.35 % over the last three years is more than fair given the climate. Bodes well for the CAF that should see something comparable.
> 
> I haven’t seen the fine print in some of the benefits like mat/pat leave but it looks good.



Yes. Will be interesting to see if the tax-free element on that payment comes through also. The article didn’t mention it, but I understand they’re still fighting for that too.


----------



## FJAG (10 Jul 2020)

Remius said:
			
		

> To be honest I was ok with the 5 days one time leave allotment but this is better as it is more fair and everyone gets the same thing.
> 
> Plus 6.35 % over the last three years is more than fair given the climate. Bodes well for the CAF that should see something comparable.
> 
> I haven’t seen the fine print in some of the benefits like mat/pat leave but it looks good.



Its all fine and fair unless you are the public paying for the original Phoenix boondoggle in the first place, then paying for the massive rebuilding of the pay system and now paying for compensation.

Why haven't dozens of politicians and bureaucrats been fired and several tech firms been sued? Head should have rolled (or better yet mounted on spikes on Parliament Hill).

 :clubinhand:


----------



## Remius (10 Jul 2020)

Heads rolled?  The head of this whole mess got an award from the GG for her work. 

Personally someone should be in jail for this.

Unfortunately this has had a major impact on PS workers and their mental health.  Lives have been ruined opportunities lost and some are still feeling the effects.  I wasn’t hit hard, but my wife was out 30,000 dollars.  Some people lost their savings. 

So yes, as much as it sucks, compensation for this mess was required.


----------



## FJAG (10 Jul 2020)

Remius said:
			
		

> Heads rolled?  The head of this whole mess got an award from the GG for her work.
> 
> Personally someone should be in jail for this.
> 
> ...



Not if the compensation is $2,500 across the board irrespective of if you lost $0.00 or $30,000. The compensation should be commensurate with the loss.

I know about the award and that's what makes me so furious about this whole thing. There simply doesn't seem to be accountability within the civil service (especially it's senior management). This is one of the reasons why I rave on and on ad nauseum about letting half of the senior leadership (civilian and military) in Ottawa go; they produce little of value for the valuable defence dollars they gobble up enforcing half-baked regulations and procedures they dreamed up in the first place.

 :clubinhand:


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## BeyondTheNow (10 Jul 2020)

FJAG said:
			
		

> Not if the compensation is $2,500 across the board irrespective of if you lost $0.00 or $30,000. The compensation should be commensurate with the loss.
> 
> I know about the award and that's what makes me so furious about this whole thing. There simply doesn't seem to be accountability within the civil service (especially it's senior management). This is one of the reasons why I rave on and on ad nauseum about letting half of the senior leadership (civilian and military) in Ottawa go; they produce little of value for the valuable defence dollars they gobble up enforcing half-baked regulations and procedures they dreamed up in the first place.
> 
> :clubinhand:



If they had all the figures in line, then that makes perfect sense. Problem is, this far into the mess, they have _yet_ to accurately identify the exact figures of every single individual affected. This is basically a ‘we’ve given up to a degree, but here’s something to make everyone slightly less ticked’ gesture.


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## dapaterson (10 Jul 2020)

By law, I was to have been paid my retro pay within 90 days of ratification of the last agreement by both parties.

They finally sorted it out in February of this year, about 2 1/4 years late.

There should be PS executives in jail over this, not "here's someone else's money to buy your silence".


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## PuckChaser (10 Jul 2020)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> There should be PS executives in jail over this, not "here's someone else's money to buy your silence".



Incompetence? Absolutely. People should be fired? 100% agree. Criminal conduct? Over the top hyperbole. I strongly doubt any PS Execs are pocketing money or that there was any criminal conduct here. Just people who were promoted at least 3 levels above their competency.


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## dapaterson (10 Jul 2020)

The senior execs violated the PSLRA by failing to implement IAW the collective agreement.

Lawbreakers on a scale such as that should face penal sanction.


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## PuckChaser (10 Jul 2020)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> The senior execs violated the PSLRA by failing to implement IAW the collective agreement.
> 
> Lawbreakers on a scale such as that should face penal sanction.



Which is not the Criminal Code of Canada. Its a civil litigation matter. 

The Liberals are big on changing the Criminal Code for major donors though, maybe PSAC hasn't donated enough yet?


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## daftandbarmy (2 Mar 2022)

Six years after... abandon hope all ye who enter here:

'Can't be fixed': Public service pay issues persist, six years after Phoenix was launched​The errors that remain aren't as egregious as they were in the early days of the system, however a backlog of trouble remains.

Thousands of workers are still owed money when they leave or retire from Canada’s public service, and some are still waiting years to get paid. 

Thousands more move to jobs in other departments and wait months, if not years, for their paperwork to catch up with them.


It’s been six years — and more than $1.4 billion in fixes — since the disastrous Phoenix launch. The government wanted the pay system to be stabilized this year, meaning the backlog of erroneous pay cases would be eliminated permanently. It’s not there yet.

The spotlight on the Phoenix fiasco all but disappeared when the pandemic took the national stage and the number of pay hardship cases fell. The errors that remain aren’t as egregious as they were in the early days, when people were getting underpaid or overpaid massively or not paid at all. However, despite improvements, a backlog of trouble remains.

The Office of the Auditor General found an overall error rate of 47 per cent in the pay of employees it sampled in 2020-21. That was slightly lower than the 51 per cent error rate the prior year. It also flagged that 41 per cent still had pay errors waiting to be fixed at the end of the year — compared to 31 per cent the year before.

With $910 million in funding in 2020, Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) put together a three-year plan to get rid of the backlog by December 2022.

The backlog-reduction strategy was built around using technology, boosting the productivity of pay advisers and reducing the volume of cases coming in. The idea is to help pay advisers plow through the flow of transactions every pay cycle and also have enough time to work on the backlog.

The size of the backlog steadily decreased for more than two years, from the peak in January 2018 of 384,000 transactions, to a low of 98,000 in April 2021. The number of people affected dropped. The pay centre also improved its wait times, meeting the service standard of dealing with most pay requests within 20 days at least 80 per cent of the time.

Phoenix’s processing started to hiccup and sputter for a couple of months before it inched back up throughout the summer and fall of 2021. The active backlog of transactions settled at 141,000 cases by late January 2022.

“When it comes to Phoenix, it is two steps forward, one step back. The backlog of outstanding transactions has reduced since 2016, but, whenever a new collective agreement or MOU is signed, it slows down the progress,” said Dany Richard, president of the Association of Canadian Financial Officers.

PSPC officials argued the backslide was nothing more than the normal flux in the volume of work.

They said the number of transactions processed each month varied depending on the complexity of transactions, the pay centre’s capacity, any new collective agreements being implemented and the normal seasonal spikes in demand, such as hiring summer students.

The size of the public service has also grown 24 per cent since 2015 and there’s been a considerable amount of churn — with people moving in and out of jobs, creating more transactions.

“Although we have made significant progress this past year in reducing the number of transactions in the backlog and queue from 2016-2020, we have seen an increase in new transactions received at the pay centre in 2021, which challenged our ability to reduce the backlog,” PSPC spokesperson Michèle LaRose said in an email.

Some say public servants, many safely working from home, aren’t complaining as loudly about pay errors when so many Canadians lost their jobs during the COVID-19 crisis. Some argue that unions backed off on Phoenix after winning $560 million in damages to compensate workers for pay gaffes. Others say public servants are now so used to pay errors that they have simply become inured to them.









						'Can't be fixed': Public service pay issues persist, six years after Phoenix was launched
					

The errors that remain aren't as egregious as they were in the early days of the system, however a backlog of trouble remains.




					ottawacitizen.com


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## Colin Parkinson (2 Mar 2022)

Heads on pikes is what is needed to ensure this never happens again.


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## Eaglelord17 (2 Mar 2022)

Pay errors happen no matter where you work. My workplace for example is particularly bad in ensuring you get your 8 hours stat holiday pay. The difference being that is corrected within a week or two when I bring it up, whereas this seems to be a chronic issue.

Two major things I have concern with in there is: 
1) why has there been a 24% increase in the public service
2) this is a great example of fixing something that wasn't broken in the first place (all the previous pay systems worked), and when it was obvious it wasn't working properly, doubling down on a failed system making the problems worse. Why hasn't anyone been fired for such a obvious failure? Why isn't anyone being held to account for such a waste of tax dollars and the potentially life ruining effects that this has had on some?


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## Colin Parkinson (2 Mar 2022)

Eaglelord17 said:


> Pay errors happen no matter where you work. My workplace for example is particularly bad in ensuring you get your 8 hours stat holiday pay. The difference being that is corrected within a week or two when I bring it up, whereas this seems to be a chronic issue.
> 
> Two major things I have concern with in there is:
> 1) why has there been a 24% increase in the public service
> 2) this is a great example of fixing something that wasn't broken in the first place (all the previous pay systems worked), and when it was obvious it wasn't working properly, doubling down on a failed system making the problems worse. Why hasn't anyone been fired for such a obvious failure? Why isn't anyone being held to account for such a waste of tax dollars and the potentially life ruining effects that this has had on some?


Because most of the senior Public Service mangers don't give a shit, they are to busy managing their own careers and more interested in appeasing the beast, than upsetting any applecarts. I seen a few that really do care, but most do not seem to.


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## Good2Golf (3 Mar 2022)

> The errors that remain aren't as egregious as they were in the early days of the system.



That's the mark of a quality system right there:  ...not as egregious as earlier...


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## Colin Parkinson (3 Mar 2022)

Eaglelord17 said:


> Pay errors happen no matter where you work. My workplace for example is particularly bad in ensuring you get your 8 hours stat holiday pay. The difference being that is corrected within a week or two when I bring it up, whereas this seems to be a chronic issue.
> 
> Two major things I have concern with in there is:
> 1) why has there been a 24% increase in the public service
> 2) this is a great example of fixing something that wasn't broken in the first place (all the previous pay systems worked), and when it was obvious it wasn't working properly, doubling down on a failed system making the problems worse. Why hasn't anyone been fired for such a obvious failure? Why isn't anyone being held to account for such a waste of tax dollars and the potentially life ruining effects that this has had on some?


Much of the increase was a reversal of the 'Work Force Adjustment" done under the CPC, which was starting to reverse under them as they realized they cut to much to quickly. plus the population of Canada has grown, leading to an increase in demand on services.

The pay systems were breaking and so was the electronic infrastructure supporting them. So lets load a all sing and dancing system onto something that was already wheezing.


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## daftandbarmy (8 Jun 2022)

More ungood news:

Public servants express 'zero faith' in Phoenix damages claims process after long waits​Some still waiting for money to compensate for severe hardships​Federal public servants say they're frustrated and have lost faith in the compensation process set up to acknowledge their severe financial and personal hardships due to the government's troubled pay system.

Some employees say they're still affected by the Phoenix pay system, introduced more than six years ago, which has overpaid, underpaid and failed to pay many federal employees since.

The government then agreed to pay eligible employees $2,500 in general damages due to Phoenix as part of its 2019 and 2020 damages agreements with various unions.

CBC spoke with several current and former public servants, including some who did not want to speak publicly, who expressed frustrations over long wait times for compensation and delayed communications from the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat's claims team.

"I can't plan, I can't assume that I'm actually going to ever get paid from the government for what's owed to me," said Grant Dyck, a now-retired tax account examiner who has experienced pay discrepancies since he took various higher-paying acting roles at Canada Revenue Agency, as well as a disability leave, back in 2017.



			https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/public-servant-phoenix-pay-system-claims-damages-1.6476630


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## Colin Parkinson (8 Jun 2022)

Happened to my co-worker: 
Department A has effed up your pay, it's also a unfun place to work, so you take a higher paying job at  Department B. Department B asks Department A; "Is the HR file complete and without errors and all pay issues resolved?" Department A Says "No", Department B says; "We aren't paying him or touching his file till you sort out your shit". So employee is being paid at his previous rate, by Department A, while working at Department B. All leave and vaction has to be signed off by his current manager at Department B and HR at Department A. Department A won't prioritise the file because he is not in their office anymore. Department B has no incentive to bug A as they get employee without any HR work. Employee feels F**ked and it's only the extraordinary effort of his current manager (awesome guy) that keeps his morale up.

Pikes+heads of senior civil servants is the cure.


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## dimsum (8 Jun 2022)

Colin Parkinson said:


> Pikes+heads of senior civil servants is the cure.


Senior civil servants having to get (wrongly) paid by Phoenix is the cure.


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## Halifax Tar (8 Jun 2022)

Jesus this is still going on ?


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## kev994 (8 Jun 2022)

Halifax Tar said:


> Jesus this is still going on ?


Yep. There was supposedly a big push to claw back overpayments that were about to roll over the 6 year mark but that’s about all I’ve seen on action.


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## dapaterson (8 Jun 2022)

My 6+ years and counting pension deduction error, flagged every year, has seen zero traction.

By incentivizing a 30 day standard, difficult files get pushed out again and again as once they pass 30 days there's nothing to motivate work on them - better to keep the under 30 stats up.


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## Good2Golf (8 Jun 2022)

kev994 said:


> Yep. There was supposedly a big push to claw back overpayments that were about to roll over the 6 year mark but that’s about all I’ve seen on action.


One would expect that might include the annual performance bonus of the ADM in PWGSC that pushed Phoenix through without the appropriate small group Beta testing…but apparently not.


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## dapaterson (8 Jun 2022)

Without any end to end testing...


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## Good2Golf (8 Jun 2022)

dapaterson said:


> Without any end to end testing...


Yup, no Alpha testing, Beta testing, end-to-end testing….it’s not like software development is complicated, right.  Who could have foreseen issues…other than the myriad of SMEs telling PWGSC and TBS, “Are you nuts?”


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## dapaterson (8 Jun 2022)

Add to that terminating the majority of the experienced staff performing the function just before rolling out the new system.

Applying a GBA+ lens, it appears that a traditionally female dominated workforce was deemed expendable and unnecessary, resulting in a disastrous failure.


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## Gsc (26 Jun 2022)

Hey everyone, I currently have a pay issue and was wondering if someone can point me in the right direction. \

I recently had my rank fixed from acting lacking to substantive. It was never suppose to be acting lacking and the error was fixed quickly. As a result though on my next pay stub all my pay since 2019 was taken back and then paid back at the exact same rate (obviously) resulting in a total amount of $0.00 in the pay and adjustments category. (that's correct as my pay stayed the exact same)

The issue now is that I was recharged federal Tax on all the repayments but not given a credit back for the federal tax paid over the years, now my closing balance is a negative FIVE FIGURE number and the amount of federal tax I have paid is approaching almost the full amount I paid over all last year. Does any have any advice?

Thanks


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## daftandbarmy (26 Jun 2022)

Good2Golf said:


> One would expect that might include the annual performance bonus of the ADM in PWGSC that pushed Phoenix through without the appropriate small group Beta testing…but apparently not.





dapaterson said:


> Add to that terminating the majority of the experienced staff performing the function just before rolling out the new system.
> 
> Applying a GBA+ lens, it appears that a traditionally female dominated workforce was deemed expendable and unnecessary, resulting in a disastrous failure.


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## SeaKingTacco (26 Jun 2022)

Gsc said:


> Hey everyone, I currently have a pay issue and was wondering if someone can point me in the right direction. \
> 
> I recently had my rank fixed from acting lacking to substantive. It was never suppose to be acting lacking and the error was fixed quickly. As a result though on my next pay stub all my pay since 2019 was taken back and then paid back at the exact same rate (obviously) resulting in a total amount of $0.00 in the pay and adjustments category. (that's correct as my pay stayed the exact same)
> 
> ...


Doesn’t sound like a Phoenix issue (That is the public service pay system). More like CCSP or RPSR. Or operator error on the part an HRA.


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## Booter (26 Jun 2022)

Halifax Tar said:


> Jesus this is still going on ?


My wife is 4 years into this- she has a separate account with 30 thousand dollars of overpayments in it? She has been underpaid multiple times- which hasn’t been fixed but she anticipates any day they’ll reach in and take 30 grand because it’s automatic. 

Her taxes have been unable to be fixed for three years- they ve been wrong and “corrected” with money coming in and out several times a year as Revenue and Phoenix make corrections that affect each other. She s been unable to port her pension since she left- because no one can write down what she actually made for pension credits. 

She’s spoken to every person at every level that she can. 

She’s not even near the worst case so they have to deal with those first.


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## daftandbarmy (26 Jun 2022)

Booter said:


> My wife is 4 years into this- she has a separate account with 30 thousand dollars of overpayments in it? She has been underpaid multiple times- which hasn’t been fixed but she anticipates any day they’ll reach in and take 30 grand because it’s automatic.
> 
> Her taxes have been unable to be fixed for three years- they ve been wrong and “corrected” with money coming in and out several times a year as Revenue and Phoenix make corrections that affect each other. She s been unable to port her pension since she left- because no one can write down what she actually made for pension credits.
> 
> ...



Given the millions of jobs going unfilled these days has she ever considered quitting?


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## SeaKingTacco (26 Jun 2022)

daftandbarmy said:


> Given the millions of jobs going unfilled these days has she ever considered quitting?


That still doesn’t fix the past 4 years of pay issues for her…


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## Booter (26 Jun 2022)

daftandbarmy said:


> Given the millions of jobs going unfilled these days has she ever considered quitting?


She has left. But she can’t do anything with her finances from those years- CRA and her pension etc


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## Remius (26 Jun 2022)

My wife was affected.  Around 30K missing because her acting at the director level was messed up and then they messed up her substantive at wrong level.  Was fixed but took a bit of time. 

Currently I have a employee reporting to me that is acting but also works a casual job in another section.  While acting for my section the system (automated) changed her casual to an acting (which can’t actually happen) which resulted in an overpayment.  Had to be manually fixed.


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## Colin Parkinson (26 Jun 2022)

I got Phoenixed recently. They are claiming a overpayment of $1,400 in 2016. Thanks a lot you bastards.


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## Colin Parkinson (26 Jun 2022)

Remius said:


> My wife was affected.  Around 30K missing because her acting at the director level was messed up and then they messed up her substantive at wrong level.  Was fixed but took a bit of time.
> 
> Currently I have a employee reporting to me that is acting but also works a casual job in another section.  While acting for my section the system (automated) changed her casual to an acting (which can’t actually happen) which resulted in an overpayment.  Had to be manually fixed.


When I was still working, people who acted at a higher level would not get their pay adjusted, as at the end of the acting assignment, the system would stop paying them and it would take months to fix it. So people kept excel spreadsheets of when they acted and at what level in the hopes of getting paid for it later.


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## Booter (26 Jun 2022)

to be honest it seems like we just need a room full of people and calculators and start doing one person at a time. And then scrap it.

Then scrap SSC


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## dapaterson (26 Jun 2022)

Phoenix was PSPC, with oversight by TBS: OCHRO, CIO and Comptroller General.   No SSC.


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## SeaKingTacco (26 Jun 2022)

dapaterson said:


> Phoenix was PSPC, with oversight by TBS: OCHRO, CIO and Comptroller General.   No SSC.


Yeah, but can we hate on SSC, just because?


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## Booter (26 Jun 2022)

dapaterson said:


> Phoenix was PSPC, with oversight by TBS: OCHRO, CIO and Comptroller General.   No SSC.


I’m aware. They are just a constant thorn in the side of anyone navigating using them.

When someone talks about phoenix it’s Triggers me to go “oh yeah- and then there is SSC”


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## Remius (26 Jun 2022)

SeaKingTacco said:


> Yeah, but can we hate on SSC, just because?


The answer is yes.


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## dapaterson (26 Jun 2022)

SeaKingTacco said:


> Yeah, but can we hate on SSC, just because?





Booter said:


> I’m aware. They are just a constant thorn in the side of anyone navigating using them.
> 
> When someone talks about phoenix it’s Triggers me to go “oh yeah- and then there is SSC”



SSC needs no extra reasons to be hated on...


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## Bruce Monkhouse (26 Jun 2022)

But can anyone help the member who recently asked a question??


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## Gsc (26 Jun 2022)

Bruce Monkhouse said:


> But can anyone help the member who recently asked a question??


Please and thank you


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## dapaterson (26 Jun 2022)

Gsc said:


> Hey everyone, I currently have a pay issue and was wondering if someone can point me in the right direction. \
> 
> I recently had my rank fixed from acting lacking to substantive. It was never suppose to be acting lacking and the error was fixed quickly. As a result though on my next pay stub all my pay since 2019 was taken back and then paid back at the exact same rate (obviously) resulting in a total amount of $0.00 in the pay and adjustments category. (that's correct as my pay stayed the exact same)
> 
> ...



Have you engaged with your local pay office?  While I suspect they will be unable to take action to fix it themselves, they should be able to escalate this to DMPAP (the NDHQ directorate responsible for running the pay systems) to have it corrected.

The one significant challenge, however, is that the federal tax charge would be based on the lump sum and would be at a higher rate since (a) it's now seen as all being within a single taxation year, and (b) the rules for taxation of one-time / lump sum payments are such that you'll normally see a much greater percentage withheld.

TL;DR this will take a senior clerk at DMPAP to help resolve.


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## daftandbarmy (26 Jun 2022)

Colin Parkinson said:


> I got *Phoenixed *recently. They are claiming a overpayment of $1,400 in 2016. Thanks a lot you bastards.



And a new verb is born!


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## Gsc (27 Jun 2022)

dapaterson said:


> Have you engaged with your local pay office?  While I suspect they will be unable to take action to fix it themselves, they should be able to escalate this to DMPAP (the NDHQ directorate responsible for running the pay systems) to have it corrected.
> 
> The one significant challenge, however, is that the federal tax charge would be based on the lump sum and would be at a higher rate since (a) it's now seen as all being within a single taxation year, and (b) the rules for taxation of one-time / lump sum payments are such that you'll normally see a much greater percentage withheld.
> 
> TL;DR this will take a senior clerk at DMPAP to help resolve.


The issue is that I wasn't given a lump sum payment. I received nothing extra. My pay was clawed back without any tax refund, then paid back to me and retaxed. My total year to date income stayed the same as my last cheque, except my federal tax had a five figure payment on this one cheque. Apparently I have paid 60% of my income into federal tax


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## kev994 (27 Jun 2022)

Colin Parkinson said:


> I got Phoenixed recently. They are claiming a overpayment of $1,400 in 2016. Thanks a lot you bastards.


What date though? I’m under the impression that they can only claw back payments for 6 years so those days are falling off every 2 weeks…


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## dapaterson (27 Jun 2022)

Gsc said:


> The issue is that I wasn't given a lump sum payment. I received nothing extra. My pay was clawed back without any tax refund, then paid back to me and retaxed. My total year to date income stayed the same as my last cheque, except my federal tax had a five figure payment on this one cheque. Apparently I have paid 60% of my income into federal tax


That is considered a lump sum (for income tax), even if you received nothing.

That's why you will likely need someone in DMPAP to make a correction.


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## Gsc (27 Jun 2022)

dapaterson said:


> That is considered a lump sum (for income tax), even if you received nothing.
> 
> That's why you will likely need someone in DMPAP to make a correction.


It's been forwarded to DMPAP I've been told. It's seems a bit ridiculous that a title change with no change in pay results in -10,000 charge and over 55%  of my income this year is gone to federal tax all of a sudden. There's no need to re pay me what I've already received exactly. Now I get to spend the next year under financial hardship while the staff who messed everything up keep collecting their proper pay and couldn't care less, and will continue to do their jobs wrong without repercussion


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## dapaterson (27 Jun 2022)

If I understand what happened, this sounds like a clerk working to make an amendment at their level, rather than pushing it to someone with Correction mode access.

The acts of cancelling and republishing the promotion each triggered a pay action - the first to recover the acting pay, the second to reissue it.

I think the better approach probably would have been to have a senior clerk with Correction mode access to change the data in the promotion row from Acting to Substantive, which would not have triggered CCPS action.  That said, I'm not positive whether such a change is possible.


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## Gsc (27 Jun 2022)

dapaterson said:


> If I understand what happened, this sounds like a clerk working to make an amendment at their level, rather than pushing it to someone with Correction mode access.
> 
> The acts of cancelling and republishing the promotion each triggered a pay action - the first to recover the acting pay, the second to reissue it.
> 
> I think the better approach probably would have been to have a senior clerk with Correction mode access to change the data in the promotion row from Acting to Substantive, which would not have triggered CCPS action.  That said, I'm not positive whether such a change is possible.


What will DMPAP do now then? How can I possibly be on the hook for 10,000$ because a clerk forgot to make me substantive three years ago and my pay in no way changed


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## dapaterson (27 Jun 2022)

Again stressing that I don't have access the systems in question, and thus this could be 100% wrong, DMPAP may be able to manually intervene in your pay file and delete the two pay actions.

Your situation is uncommon, and I don't think the UPK for Guardian covers it.  Clerks don't generally have detailed knowledge and training in unusual situations, nor detailed knowledge in the potential implications of cancelling and republishing a rank change that affects multiple taxation years.


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## Fishbone Jones (27 Jun 2022)

18 pages so far. Are the problems we see in this forum still ongoing? How many OR's are affected by ongoing problems with Phoenix?


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## dangerboy (27 Jun 2022)

Fishbone Jones said:


> 18 pages so far. Are the problems we see in this forum still ongoing? How many OR's are affected by ongoing problems with Phoenix?


One thing to remember is that CAF pay does not use Phoenix, The CAF uses a different pay system(s). DND public employees use Phoenix.


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## Fishbone Jones (28 Jun 2022)

dangerboy said:


> One thing to remember is that CAF pay does not use Phoenix, The CAF uses a different pay system(s). DND public employees use Phoenix.


Cheers.


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## daftandbarmy (28 Jun 2022)

dangerboy said:


> One thing to remember is that CAF pay does not use Phoenix*, (YET)* The CAF uses a different pay system(s)* (FOR NOW).* DND public employees use Phoenix.



There, FTFY


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## Kirkhill (3 Jan 2023)

It seems that the solution to the Phoenix pay system may lie with a Ukrainian hacker in a trench in the Donbas.



> *One resource-management software project started in a military unit that was looking to make payroll easier after onboarding so many new soldiers*. Programmers who once built such systems for private companies as part of Ukraine’s sprawling technology-outsourcing sector turned to building an open-source system for automating payroll calculations. Now they are building other modules to the software to cover things such as equipment storage, according to people involved in the project...


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