The problem for Stephen, a single dad, began with the first paycheque in March.

Over the next three and half months, between $500 and nearly $900 was missing from the federal public service employee’s monthly earnings.

Over the months the pay problems took their toll.

“I had to give up three weekends with my children because I didn’t have food to feed them. I don’t mind eating peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner for days on end but I certainly wasn’t going to feed my kids that.

“I had to miss my daughter’s softball tournament, which I promised I would be at but I couldn’t because I didn’t have the gas to get there.

“I took four days off due to the stress of the situation. I was incapable of working.”

One payday was $8 less than his monthly rent. His cellphone was cutoff, bill unpaid. He wracked up $200 in late fees for unpaid bills and interest. His relationship came under stress.

“There was days I didn’t go to work because I didn’t have the gas to get to work,” he says. “I had to go to the food bank.”

Stephen, who didn’t want to be identified out of fear of reprisals, is one of an estimated 80,000 federal employees affected by the ongoing glitches in the federal government’s new payroll system, Phoenix.

“We have people who are quitting their jobs. I had to go to the food bank,” Stephen says. One of his colleagues missed three full paycheques. Another did not get her maternity leave top-up.

The federal government offered emergency payments to those worst-hit but Stephen says those were only for people who received zero pay.

“It is absolutely insane,” he says.

The Phoenix system has been plagued with issues since it went into service in February, following five years in development.

Phoenix, designed by IBM, replaces a decades-old system to handle pay for more than 300,000 federal government employees.

The problems were immediate.

Even prior to its launch, concerns were raised about privacy breaches. Those glitches during the testing phase were low-risk, were fixed and have been reviewed by the federal privacy commissioner, the deputy minister of public services and procurement assured employees in a letter last week.

With regard to paycheques, extras such as the northern bonus, overtime and other benefits weren’t included.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. More than 700 federal employees weren’t paid at all.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/phoenix-federal-payroll-system-plagued-with-211443434.html