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Gloria McLamb heads a staff of
eight who makes sure all employees get a paycheck on time
each month. Gloria, who has worked 28 years for DOC, says
she has always enjoyed working with figures. Gloria makes sure employees who separate from
the department are paid properly for that particular
month and that they are off the payroll for the next
month. If an employee doesn’t work through the end
of the month, he or she won’t get a paycheck until
the middle of the following month. She says there are
lots of people leaving, about 200 a month.
"They’ll come and go so quick, stay three days
and decide they don’t like it and leave."
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Doris Martin is the assistant
payroll manager. She does the paperwork for new hires and
shift premiums which include overtime, on-call, call back
work and holiday pay. "Cross-ups in paperwork can
happen when you have 18,000 employees," Martin said.
When she started working eight years ago, there were only
9,000 employees and three on the payroll staff. "I’m fixing to tell you something, and
you’ll think I’m crazy, but I like my job, I
like what I do." One employee called saying he had
washed his paycheck in the washing machine. Doris told
him he’d be surprised how many people do that.
"That’s what we’re here for," Doris
said. "There are a lot of good, hard working people
like correctional officers and nurses. I admire them for
what they’re doing."
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Last month, Shanon Johnson
collected $339,667.70 in garnished wages of correction
employees. By court order, wages can be garnished for
child support payments, student loans, bankruptcy cases,
and federal, state and county taxes. Shanon estimates
that about half the employees have their wages garnished.
In cases of child support, the employee may request
garnishment of his wages for proof that he is paying. "If you owe it, then you need to pay
it," Shanon said. "There are a lot of people
who deserve that money." Shanon pointed out that
some people got their job because of their education they
received thanks to student loans.
Shanon enjoys her job so much, "I
don’t even dread coming to work," she said.
About 65% of her work is making sure the documents she
receives are legitimate.
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Even though Stephanie Ezell
would rather be home with her show horse, Montious Golden
Rod, (who reportedly rides like a Cadillac), she enjoys
her work in the payroll section. She is the person
mortgage companies or banks call when an employee is
applying for a bank loan or a mortgage. She verifies
salary information. She also records the Blue Cross/Blue
Shield dental insurance information, sends copies of W-2
or W-5 forms and check stubs to employees who have lost
or misplaced them, and handles the shift premium data for
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Kathie Lefler has been working
on the health insurance end of payroll since 1980. Her
main job is balancing the bills for 12 HMO’s and
half of the state health plan, and she remits the
premiums to the insurance companies. She also sends
refunds on insurance when a spouse is dropped, bills
people who are sick and need to send in premiums, and
keeps track of employees who are taking family medical
leave or who are on short-term disability. She makes sure employees who have fallen under
the reduction in force act receive insurance for one
year.
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Willis Morgan is the newest
employee to the payroll department, starting in Nov. 1997
after transferring from the Work Release section. He said
his job is different all the time, and he really loves
his work and everybody in the payroll section. "You know what your deadlines are, you know
what you have to do, and you just get it done,"
Morgan said. "There’s not a lot of down
time." Willis keys into the computer changes in tax
forms, pay increases, and changing position numbers. He
pays the 500 contractual employees, codes and pays shift
premium, and does half of the direct deposit forms.
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When the number of employees
increased, Michelle Johnson was added to the
payroll staff to help process all the enrollments into
the state health plan and HMO’s. She has 250 to 300
new hires to process each month. She must keep up with
newborns in families and address changes. She also helps
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"The retirement form is the
happiest form anyone can get, and I like to make people
happy," said Stephanie Bias who in addition
to retirements, oversees bank mergers and direct
deposits. "We’re the last stop before a
retirement application is turned over to the retirement
system in the State Treasurer’s Office. That’s
where a retiree’s check comes from, not DOC
payroll." Bias is a liaison
with the State Treasurer’s office and with banks. In
her work dealing with bank mergers, Bias said that one
bank has had six name changes in three years. "I
can’t tell people where to bank, but the state
credit union cares about the little people."
"We are very employee-oriented
here," Bias said. "We do our best to really
make sure we take care of them because oftentimes they
are uninformed. By the time employees get to us, they are
so frustrated, and we will do everything we can to
help."
She gets a large number of calls on
payday from employees asking why their check was not in
the bank.
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