For the 22,388 FSN employees included in both systems, we performed additional testing to identify data inconsistencies related to the date of birth, service computation date, and annual salary, and we found
• 843 instances in which an employee’s date of birth was not consistent.
• 2,644 instances in which an employee’s service computation date was not consistent.
• 2,662 instances in which an employee’s annual salary was not consistent.
The Department tested a judgmental sample of the discrepancies we noted and reported that WebPass contained more accurate information on employees’ dates of birth and service computation dates and FSNPay or GFACS contained more accurate salary information. We re-performed the Department’s testing and confirmed its conclusions regarding the most accurate sources of FSN employee information.
We found that posts were processing personnel actions inconsistently. In certain instances, posts were not notifying the responsible GFSC in a timely manner about personnel actions that had been processed. Additionally, we noted instances where data submitted to the responsible GFSC was not updated in the applicable payroll application to reflect changes made in WebPass. We also found instances where approved personnel actions were not accurately entered into the applicable payroll application once the information was provided to the GFSC due to data entry error. The Department did not have a control in place to ensure that all post-approved personnel actions included in WebPass were also entered into either FSNPay or GFACS, such as a process to regularly reconcile the data between the applications.
Without accurate and complete FSN personnel data, the Department may not be able to efficiently or accurately calculate its annual liability for after-employment benefits. The Department was able to adjust its liability estimation methodology to address the discrepancies identified during our testing through manual manipulation of data in either FSNPay or GFACS and WebPass. These manual calculations required additional time and effort and were more prone to inaccuracies.
In addition, the risk of improper payments exists if personnel actions are not processed properly or timely or when payroll and benefit payments are calculated based on inaccurate data. The lack of reconciliation between the payroll applications and WebPass may result in errors and inconsistencies remaining undetected and uncorrected for long periods of time.
This issue was initially reported in our FY 2012 report on internal control.