(OTTAWA) Up to a quarter of federal government employees are still struggling with their pay due to the troubled Phoenix system, and the government may run out of time to recover overpayments.
Posted at 12:49 p.m.
A new report from the Auditor General of Canada indicates that 28% of public servants in her sample had errors in their pay, down from an estimated 47% last year.
More than $500 million in overpayments have been made to more than 100,000 employees, some dating back more than three years.
If the government doesn’t collect these overpayments quickly, the auditor says, it could run out of time to use certain collection mechanisms because of legal limitations.
The Phoenix system was launched in 2016 and was intended to consolidate dozens of outdated compensation systems and save the government millions each year.
Instead, it caused massive upheaval and cost the government over $2.1 billion.