Austin payroll error overpays 675 employees by $1.4 million

The city overpaid 675 employees by $1.4 million this month due to a payroll system error, officials said, and is now working to recover the funds.

The error occurred earlier this month when the city’s Workday payroll system mistakenly overpaid hundreds of employees for their March 13 paychecks.

City spokesperson Jenny LaCoste-Caputo said the error occurred due to a software malfunction when a nonrequired data field was left blank on a spreadsheet for job descriptions during routine updates.

The system overrode the existing data with the blank field, she added, treating each week in the two-week pay period separately because it could not distinguish which employees qualified for overtime and, in some cases, providing up to double an employee’s normal paycheck amount.

LaCoste-Caputo said Austin Human Resources notified affected employees on March 12 and has corrected the issue for this week’s pay period.

"Human Resources staff are working on a repayment plan that would allow the impacted employees to return the overpayment over a specified period of time," she added.

The error comes amid spending scrutiny. The city has publicized several audits and recommendations in recent months.

Earlier this month, the city auditor’s office found major gaps in the city’s oversight of consultant contracts, raising concerns over hundreds of millions of dollars in spending.

Audits released in December revealed widespread failures in contract oversight and missing documentation tied to Austin airport contracts. That same month, internal auditors uncovered a former Austin Energy employee who funneled nearly $1 million in public funds to fake vendors over six years.