Chaos inside the Phoenix pay centres Is anyone's pay right?

Federal payroll workers are falling back on Excel spreadsheets, Google and, in some cases, pen and paper to make up for the litany of problems with the Phoenix pay system which, several staffers say, is weakening the integrity of theentire compensation system.

Workers from offices in Winnipeg, Edmonton and the central pay centreinMiramichi, N.B., who spoke to CBC News on condition of anonymity, said they're often forced to come up with creative solutions to the pay system's glitches.

"They do what they have to do," said DonnaLackie, former national president of the union representing thepay workers, whorecently visited the centre inMiramichi.

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"If one is able to discover a tool for a certain pay function, they share that with each other."

Some were even usingGoogleto try to find answers to their Phoenix questions in the pay system's early days, she said.Since its debut 18 months ago, tens of thousands of public servants across Canada have been improperly paid.

One staffer, who has worked in the federal pay system for more than 25 years, told CBC she questions all the transactions coming out of Phoenix.

"We are nowhere near as comfortable with the integrity of the information and the integrity of the amount of pay and everything," the staffer said.

"Phoenix is very unreliable. It's almost volatile. Whatever we put in, I'm never 100 per cent surethat is whatthe outcome is going to be."

Incomplete and shredded

Back in 2012, four years before the Phoenix switch was flipped, hundreds of staffers inMiramichistarted working on the transition to the new pay system. The government had already decided to lay off1,000 workers in other locations across the country and to centralize thepay centre operations in New Brunswick.

Workers tell CBC News the Miramichicentre received truckloads of paper pay files from all parts of Canada, which were to be enteredinto the new, developing system.

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But they said the boxes of paper were coming from people who were losing their jobs. Some files were incomplete.They also found out that other files had been shredded.

"It's unbelievable the amount of forensics we had to do," one staffer said.

"The government put these people in a difficult position. They were being let go, their loyalties were gone."

50,000 backlogged cases

By the time the Phoenix system started to roll out in February 2016, workers say they already had 50,000 cases of improper payment in the backlog.

They said the day Phoenix started, none of the staff not even the trainers had seen the new technology in operation, so no one knew exactly what to do. They soon realized the technology wasn't programmed to do what it was supposed to.

This was formally acknowledged by government ministerswith thetabling of a reportlast week.

"[Phoenix] was set up to fail," said CarlaQualtrough, minister of public services and procurement.

80 collective agreements, 80,000 rules

Qualtroughsaid the Phoenix architects underestimated the extreme complexity of the federal government's pay system, and that proper oversight and accountability were not in place from the start.

The system needs to carry out some 8.9 million annual transactions valued at $17 billion, with more than 80 collective agreements and 80,000 business rules, according to the report.

Phoenix is not able to handle all those transactions. Sopayroll workersmust complete manymanual steps and work outside the program to get people paid.

"Our current human resources, pay and finance processes do not align with Phoenix, resulting in many time consuming, manual calculations and delays from employees waiting for their pay,"Qualtroughsaid.

'That's not automation'

Stafferssay they often relyon Excel spreadsheets to figure out transactions before inputting the numbers into Phoenix.

"We actually have to complete an Excel document and upload it into Phoenix so it can create a payment. That's not automation," oneworkertold CBC.

The unions aren't getting their union dues, or they're getting too much. Federal payroll worker

"We write everything down. We're printing so we have our backup."

Another payroll worker, who works in Edmonton, told CBC she's not confident that the transactions they're putting in are always accurate.

"It's not only the pay that's now affected, it's their deductions. I don't think pension contributions are taken accurately," she said.

"The unions aren't getting their union dues, or they're getting too much, or they're having it refunded to the employee. Our insurance, dental, health care, how are they getting the employers share of the premiums?"

November deadline

The government has said the system will be fixed, but it will take time. There continues to be a massive backlog.In September 160,000 government workers were improperly paid, according to an internal government document, and according toQualtroughanother current complication is the integration of about 25 new collective agreements into the system.

"Frankly, the number of transactions in the backlog is going to go up before it goes down," she said.

Integrating the collective agreements is a top priority, because if that work is not complete by mid-November, the government will be breaking the law.

Qualtroughsaid 356 new payroll staffers have recently been hired and the government hopes to hire many more to help those who've been slogging it out for years already.

"Our workload has exploded, we're barely keeping our head above water. We've tripled our workload," said one.