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MATA and PATA ( Parental Leave )

I had about 463$ taken out of end of Oct pay. I am not sure how they calculated that as I was getting about 1200$ a month of top up for 5 months from end of March to mid-Sept 09. These calculations seems to be wrong because according to the pay statement they took out about 346$ in May and August. There also seem to be small credits for other months as well which brought the total to 463$. That's not 1 day of overpayment for 3 months of 31 days... I also had no communication from my OR at all regarding this matter...
 
meni0n said:
I had about 463$ taken out of end of Oct pay. I am not sure how they calculated that as I was getting about 1200$ a month of top up for 5 months from end of March to mid-Sept 09. These calculations seems to be wrong because according to the pay statement they took out about 346$ in May and August. There also seem to be small credits for other months as well which brought the total to 463$. That's not 1 day of overpayment for 3 months of 31 days... I also had no communication from my OR at all regarding this matter...

General rule of thumb.......when a CF members incurs a debit on their pay guide which exceeds a pre-determined threshold, the member is normally contacted before hand to explain the situation and if necessary, the debit is not acted on if an extended recovery period is warranted.

You will need to go and see your supporting OR/Pay Clerk to find out just what happened.
 
Sheep Dog AT said:
Myself and another member are out $400+ and $1000+ with no communication

I saw the "cancellation" message and I am pretty certain that it said "no recovery action to be initiated until further clarification" or something like that.

You need to go and see your supporting OR/Pay Clerk and get an explanation.  The MATA/PATA Coords at local areas, should have been proactive and prevented this from occurring.
 
From my OR, here is what happened. The recoveries were automatically generated in CCPS, that's why we can see them now on the pay statements. They were set to be actioned for the end Oct pay, so you should see an uneven split between mid and end month. Further direction is coming, and if need be, pay staff will have to go in an manually adjust peoples pay keep the recovery from happening.

That being said, DMPAP has not yet generated a list of affected personnel, and most pay sections don't have the staff to go through each and every members individual pay accounts.
 
DAA said:
I saw the "cancellation" message and I am pretty certain that it said "no recovery action to be initiated until further clarification" or something like that.

Yes, there was a cancellation message, however, see para 2:

newwifey said:
1. The subject message titled mata/pata calculation changes is cancelled.
2. The central computation pay system (ccps) changes implemented 20 sep 13 cannot be reversed. Consequently, 15 Oct 13 pay statements will reflect these changes. However pay offices are not repeat not to take any action to recover or pay out any monies concerning this mata/pata issue until further notice.

DAA said:
You need to go and see your supporting OR/Pay Clerk and get an explanation.

Yep.  :nod:
 
:goodpost:


I thought so.  The problem being.....it will most likely be incumbent upon the member affected, to actually bring this up with their supporting Pay Office.  I did receive an email today from higher, asking us to "identify" any members of our unit who were in receipt of MATA/PATA benefits during the period in question.  So it looks like this is going to be a manual/labour intensive process and naturally, not everyone will get their hand counted.
 
it really is a cluster *&&*^ to be blunt.  My last mata/pata was in 04 and according to the message was suppose to be debit followed by credit.  No such thing occurred, according to my pay guide I am out almost 800 bucks for 7 months mata/pata.  Worse I have asked the question to the clerks (currently deployed in Kabul) and no one seems to have a clue as to what to say or do about it.  I find it very disappointing that the only reason I am aware of this issue is from Facebook and this site for both the original message and cancellation. If it wasn't for these 2 sites the first time I would have know is from my pay guide.  Very sad communications on someone's part.  800 bucks is a lot of money regardless of rank and from the message I find it hard to believe I was over paid that much in a 5 month period. What's going to happen to those who released since then?  My hubby took 3 months are they coming after him too. Someone needs to be held accountable for the lack of communication in this situation.
 
Does anyone have any additional info on this?

My mid October pay got docked $180, but I found out about this on Facebook, kind of getting tired of this arbitrary pay recoveries.  This is the third time that I've only found out about pay recoveries when my pay stub comes in.

One of the other guys I work with got nailed for about $500, and there is no real rhyme or reason for the calculations (ie deductions on some 30 day months etc).

With all the other sound bites coming out of the govt about 'this isn't how the private sector does it' this might be another thing they look at changing.  I think generally if you get overpaid in the private sector due to a clerical error on their part like this, they can change their calculation going forward but eat any overpayments to employees.

Incidentally, I'm not a lawyer, but I'm not sure if the ref B. (Consolidated liability and Proceedings act) applies in this case.  You can read it here http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-50/index.html, but will start a separate thread as I'm now curious.


Here's the a link to the story from the Ottawa citizen blog

LINK REMOVED AS PER SITE POLICY

(sorry, missed the 2nd page of discussion before posting, removed the story as it was redundant)
 
newwifey said:
Apparently it's now been cancelled (for now).  Perhaps someone can confirm with the actual link.  This message was also posted on facebook.

"1. The subject message titled mata/pata calculation changes is cancelled.
2.The central computation pay system (ccps) changes implemented 20 sep 13 cannot be reversed. Consequently, 15 Oct 13 pay statements will reflect these changes. However pay offices are not repeat not to take any action to recover or pay out any monies concerning this mata/pata issue until further notice."

Pretty self-explanatory.  The transaction cannot be reversed at this time.  Even though, the message clearly states that pay offices are NOT to recover or pay out any monies associated with this, it is in your best interests to contact your local Pay Office ASAP and bring this to their attention, just to be on the safe side.  CCPS Pay Roll Generation is "automatic" and the only way to prevent recovery, is most likely through "manual" intervention on affected pay guides/accounts.

Be "proactive" and tell them!!!  Do NOT wait for them to come to you!
 
I don't have much faith in their calculations anyway.  I took 3 weeks of PATA, and it appears I am having 1 days pay recovered.  How do they figure that I was paid for 31 days when I only took 21 days?
 
I haven't the justification for why the change, but I'm assuming they were using the standard military way of calculating the daily rate as (month pay/30).  So for a month with 31 days(daily rate X 31), that was an extra day of pay, when instead is should have been (monthly pay/31) for the daily rate.  So for example at $5000/month, the 21 days paid at the 30 day calulation, would be $3500.  Where the correct rate would be $3387.10.  Where if they just subtract a day to fix it, they arrive at $3333.33.  If this is actually the case, then everyone who started MATA/PATA on someday other than the 1st of a month, and ended on someday other than the 31st of a month, would be short money.

But that's just speculation.  As stated above, I'm just assuming that the error was in the daily rate.
 
Isn't it a little silly to direct pay offices to not take any action to recover the money when it was all done automatically at a higher level?

They may as well tell me not to authorize or release CFTOs until further notice.

Once I'm back in at work tomorrow I will be wandering over to discuss, but the whole thing is pretty ridiculous and probably never should have happened in this fashion to begin with.  Yet another case where the ORs are going to get a number of upset people coming in for something completely outside of their control.
 
Update......see recently released CANFORGEN 169/13.

1. SINCE 1 JANUARY 2001, MATA/PATA BENEFITS FOR THE REGULAR FORCE HAVE BEEN CALCULATED BASED ON THE NUMBER OF DAYS IN A CALENDAR MONTH, AS OPPOSED TO A 30 DAY AVERAGE AS REQUIRED BY QR AND O. AS SUCH, MATA/PATA BENEFITS WERE OVERPAID BY ONE DAY FOR EACH CALENDAR MONTH WITH 31 DAYS, AND BENEFITS IN THE MONTH OF FEB WERE UNDERPAID BY ONE OR TWO DAYS, DEPENDING ON WHETHER OR NOT IT WAS A LEAP YEAR. THIS SITUATION IS CURRENTLY BEING ASSESSED
2. ACCORDINGLY, PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT FOR NOW NO REPEAT NO RECOVERIES OR PAYOUTS OF AMOUNTS CONCERNING THESE ADJUSTMENTS WILL BE ACTIONED
3. CAF MEMBERS WILL CONTINUE TO BE PAID AS PER NORMAL UNTIL SUCH TIME AS FURTHER ANALYSIS IS CONDUCTED AND DIRECTION IS ISSUED. IMPACTED MEMBERS WILL THEN BE ADVISED OF THE ACTION PLAN AT THAT TIME
4. QUERIES RELATED TO AN INDIVIDUAL MEMBER S PAY ACCOUNTS SHOULD BE ADDRESSED TO THE APPROPRIATE LOCAL PAY SECTION
 
DAA said:
Update......see recently released CANFORGEN 169/13.

1. SINCE 1 JANUARY 2001, MATA/PATA BENEFITS FOR THE REGULAR FORCE HAVE BEEN CALCULATED BASED ON THE NUMBER OF DAYS IN A CALENDAR MONTH, AS OPPOSED TO A 30 DAY AVERAGE AS REQUIRED BY QR AND O. AS SUCH, MATA/PATA BENEFITS WERE OVERPAID BY ONE DAY FOR EACH CALENDAR MONTH WITH 31 DAYS, AND BENEFITS IN THE MONTH OF FEB WERE UNDERPAID BY ONE OR TWO DAYS, DEPENDING ON WHETHER OR NOT IT WAS A LEAP YEAR. THIS SITUATION IS CURRENTLY BEING ASSESSED
2. ACCORDINGLY, PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT [size=22pt]FOR NOW NO REPEAT NO RECOVERIES OR PAYOUTS OF AMOUNTS CONCERNING THESE ADJUSTMENTS WILL BE ACTIONED [/size]
3. CAF MEMBERS WILL CONTINUE TO BE PAID AS PER NORMAL UNTIL SUCH TIME AS FURTHER ANALYSIS IS CONDUCTED AND DIRECTION IS ISSUED. IMPACTED MEMBERS WILL THEN BE ADVISED OF THE ACTION PLAN AT THAT TIME
4. QUERIES RELATED TO AN INDIVIDUAL MEMBER S PAY ACCOUNTS SHOULD BE ADDRESSED TO THE APPROPRIATE LOCAL PAY SECTION
 
Unfortunately the ORs have no idea who is affected and have had no direction yet on how to action it, other then they might have to manually verify everyone's pay.

Incidentally, one of the guys at work was going through his, and found that he had different rates for different 31 day months, and in some cases had deductions on 30 day months and credits on 31 day months, so looks like they may have also somehow also crapped the bed on how they calculated it.

I am also not entirely sure how I somehow managed to get a $0.01 credit for the first week of July.  I took 6 weeks from end may-early July about 5 years ago and they still somehow couldn't get a computer to crunch the numbers properly.

Well played DMPAP, well played.

This pay change brought to you by demotivator.com;

governmentdemotivator.jpg
 
Navy_Pete said:
Unfortunately the ORs have no idea who is affected and have had no direction yet on how to action it, other then they might have to manually verify everyone's pay.

Incidentally, one of the guys at work was going through his, and found that he had different rates for different 31 day months, and in some cases had deductions on 30 day months and credits on 31 day months, so looks like they may have also somehow also crapped the bed on how they calculated it.

I am also not entirely sure how I somehow managed to get a $0.01 credit for the first week of July.  I took 6 weeks from end may-early July about 5 years ago and they still somehow couldn't get a computer to crunch the numbers properly.

Well played DMPAP, well played.

As I have pretty much been "preaching" all along.  Do not "wait" for them to come to you, you HAVE to go the them!!!  This WILL be a "manual, hands on, hunt and peck" process.

So to put it bluntly, if I am the guy in the chair charged with managing the PON and you come to me on 16 Oct, after having received your pay statement well in advance, and now you find yourself short changed as a result of this.

Conversation will go something like this......"Sorry about that.  So you should have received your pay statement over a week ago and you are just coming in now to question it?  Here, let me provide you with a copy of QR&O 203.04 which will help make you feel better.  In the mean time, we will set you up to protect for this and the recovery amount will be DFT'd to your bank account in 5-7 working days"........next customer!
 
DAA said:
As I have pretty much been "preaching" all along.  Do not "wait" for them to come to you, you HAVE to go the them!!!  This WILL be a "manual, hands on, hunt and peck" process.

So to put it bluntly, if I am the guy in the chair charged with managing the PON and you come to me on 16 Oct, after having received your pay statement well in advance, and now you find yourself short changed as a result of this.

Conversation will go something like this......"Sorry about that.  So you should have received your pay statement over a week ago and you are just coming in now to question it?  Here, let me provide you with a copy of QR&O 203.04 which will help make you feel better.  In the mean time, we will set you up to protect for this and the recovery amount will be DFT'd to your bank account in 5-7 working days"........next customer!

Well, two things;

1) The actual amount is being taken off the end Oct pay.  So, for example, if you normally take home 3600/month, or 1800 every pay period, and you have a $200 recovery from the MATA/PATA, your mid October pay will still be 1800, with your closing balance being $1600.  So until they pay out mid Oct, and issue the end October pay statement, you won't know what it's going to be for sure due to the flux in their orders.  Also, I did contact the OR, they basically said they haven't really gotten any direction on what is going on, so keep an eye on your pay, and let them know right away if the money is taken off, as they can't really do anything right now.  Because this was done centrally, they are trying to avoid fixing it locally with a credit as people may get overpayed (again) if DMPAP cancels the initial deduction.

2) This isn't a situation where people were taking a benefit they weren't entitled to (ie collecting sea pay after a shore posting); this was a miscalculation on part of the pay system done centrally when figuring out the daily rate.  If you were to question the rate of pay, you would be told to not question it, they are the SMEs.  And it has been done this way for the last twelve years or so, so it's a systemic and long term error that cannot be realistically be attributed to the member, so (1) and (2) of QR&O 203.04 don't apply.  If I were to get that kind of reply at the pay office, I think I would go from being polite (as it really wasn't their fault) to being pretty angry (for going to the pay office for a pay issue not of my own making and having an order I'm aware of thrown back at me).

It's not that I'm saying that money isn't owed back, but considering the circumstances, there really was no rush to get it back.  This could have been handled a lot better, and been clearly communicated to allow people time to a) make sure the calculation is correct b) figure out how to pay it back in a reasonable time that doesn't mess with their finances.

As long as they've initiated the procedure to recover the money, the six year window doesn't suddenly close, as is clearly identified in both the act they cited as well as amplifying TB directives on overpayment recover procedures, so there wasn't the risk that they would be out of pocket.  Also, they do have the option to write the whole thing off in the TB directive on recovering overpayments, which in my opinion, would probably be the best way to go given the complete clusterf**k they've made of it so far, as they've probably wasted more in staff time already then the recovery is worth.

I have no sympathy at all for folks that don't report extra sea pay or whatever and have to pay it back; but this is completely different.  It's complete BS to tell people they are entitled to something, then try and claim it back after the fact because you miscounted your beans or misread the policy, which, to me, is a personal problem on the part of whoever authorized it.  It's ridiculous that you can get hung for making a mistake anywhere else but when a SME on pay and benefits screws up, it's somehow the members faults? 
[/end rant]
 
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