State University of New York

Downstate Medical Center: Practices Related to Payroll Overpayments.

Downstate Medical Center, which is located in Brooklyn, comprises various medical colleges and a 376-bed University Hospital. We examined the controls established by the Center for removing employees from the payroll and recovering payroll overpayments. We identified significant weaknesses in these controls, as employees often remained on the payroll after they were no longer employed by the Center. For example, during a period of approximately one year, 118 employees remained on the payroll after they were no longer employed by the Center and received more than $490,000 in paychecks they were not entitled to. Seven of the former employees received these inappropriate payments for three or more months before the payments were finally detected and stopped by the Center. We further determined that the Center was not always effective in its efforts to recover such payments. We recommended certain improvements be made in the Center’s controls over such payroll activities.

For a complete copy of Report 2008-S-110 click here.
For a copy of the 90-day response click here.
For a copy of the associated follow-up report click here.