RSPCA audits show employees may have been underpaid over past decade
Internal audits show that more than 1600 RSPCA NSW employees may have been underpaid over the past decade.
NSW
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Internal audits show that more than 1600 RSPCA NSW employees may have been underpaid over the past decade.
The audits show the RSPCA was alerted to the possible underpayments in June 2017.
The Australian charity watchdog has now been alerted and has warned generally that any failure by a charity board to ensure its financial affairs are managed responsibly could lead to its charity licence being revoked.
After being contacted by The Daily Telegraph, the animal charity said just 19 past and 22 present staff had been underpaid by almost $123,000 and that repayments have commenced.
But internal documents show that the charity was concerned about the “magnitude” of the costs with more than 1600 past and present employees at risk of being underpaid.
An RSPCA payroll manager first raised the alarm and reported 14 areas where employees had been underpaid a significant amount because enterprise agreements had not been correctly applied dating back to 2009.
Sources have told the Telegraph investigations found the 2017 staff collective agreement had not been correctly applied.
“Given the magnitude of the potential costs associated with this interpretation, Herbert Smith Freehills were engaged to provide their legal opinion on the coverage of the RSPCA NSW Staff Collective Agreement,” Human Resources manager Jason Steele wrote in a report in May 2019.
In May last year the RSPCA hired accountants PwC to examine its database and identify the size of the problem. It found 1604 employees were at risk of being underpaid across 14 categories, including failure to pay for weeks of unclaimed leave and unpaid penalty and overtime loading.
The charity then cut the number of eligible employees to 1404 because of a six-year statutory limitation on such payments. There were also 10 categories where superannuation had been underpaid.
The RSPCA NSW board resolved to tell employees and alert the Fair Work Ombudsman on February 20 but that is still to happen.
The charity has spent almost $220,000 to try and fix up the mess but some RSPCA workers are still unaware that they may have been underpaid.
An RSPCA NSW spokesman confirmed it “became aware in June 2017 that there were potential errors in some of the payroll calculations relating to benefits and allowances paid to certain categories of RSPCA NSW staff”.
The spokesman said Herbert Smith Freehills and a global consulting firm provided advice ahead of the appointment of an “experienced consultant to assist with determining the extent of the problem” in May 2019.
“Following detailed analysis, the results indicate that a total of 19 past and 22 present staff members, out of 531 current staff members, were affected. This equates to $112,262 in relation to current employees and $10,412 in relation to past employees,” he said.
The spokesman said “we are currently in the process of drafting relevant disclosures” to regulators.
Former RSPCA employee Yvette Montano, 25, claimed she was underpaid but when she told a manager he said the RSPCA did not have the money to pay her.
“As soon as I went to Fair Work and they contacted him I was paid the money,” she said.
Ms Montano said other employees were unaware of the problem.
“It is my understanding that a lot of employees at RSPCA NSW do not know what they are entitled to,” she said.
“People are giving money to the organisation to care for the animals.”
The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission confirmed it had been alerted to the problem but secrecy provisions meant it was unable to comment.