As the complexity of the city’s payroll system has increased over the years, the role of Payroll Administrator has evolved.  The organizational structure of the payroll function has been under evaluation by Human Resources and the Financial Services Department for over a year now, and it is clear that the departmental needs have changed and the role has grown.  What the department expects of the role aligns most closely with both the knowledge, skills and abilities, as well as the essential functions of the Accountant role in the Accountant job family.  Where in the past the payroll function was more transactional, the department is moving to greater oversight, coordination and responsibility in the functional areas of compliance, auditing, accounting and budgeting.    

 

Timing of the recommended change has been impacted by the city’s COVID19 pandemic response.  The Financial Services Department has one main position responsible for the payroll function, titled Payroll Administrator, under the supervision of an Accountant Senior.  This is unlike all other critical payroll functions in the department which are assigned to Accountants.  The disadvantage of maintaining only one person in a solitary Payroll Administrator position is that there is no cross training of this accounting function.  The staffing uncertainties in the COVID19 pandemic have highlighted this perilous shortcoming.  Therefore, it is of vital importance to the continuity of the highly complex payroll system to make the Payroll Administrator an Accountant position, which allows the flexibility to have more cross training for the role.

To implement the structure and shore up redundancies in the payroll function, there is a change required in the employee complement.  One Payroll Administrator needs to be reclassified to an Accountant I.

 

The complement change is represented as follows:

Payroll Administrator	Current: 1	Proposed: 0
Accountant I/II	Current: 4	Proposed: 5

 

Implementation of this proposal creates an internal reclassification within the Department, the cost of which is estimated to be $500 for FY20 and $7,000 for FY21 in the General Fund.