CONDITIONS IN PAYROLL BRANCH, FISCAL DIVISION, OFFICE OF THE COMPTROLLER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-05246A000100100013-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 3, 2001
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: October 2, 1956
• Content Type: MF

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MENCAANDUM FORz teputy Director (Support)
Conditions in PeyrollBearich. Fiscal Di
Copptroller'
. On September 18 the Inspector General rece,Ved at anonymOW
'l
addressed to him by name and title, alleging a serii ,li ly deterinret
-in, the Ptyroll Branch, Fiscal Division. This lette,:edleged amoeg
hat'pereonnel were being driven to the point of exhaustien4Ahatovert
,
:excessive, "that =sound changes were being madk in basic prOeduree,,that,
less terrible, &md:that most personnel were seeking to escape through rest
?or reassignment. The letter concluded with at indication that Congress'
probably be informed of these "slave conditioae" unless same cherages
2. Knowleege of condltions in the CenereeAller's Office alreftay in the .t
Possession of this Staff, pins the evident ennresrity of the complainieg let
resulted in az immediate spot investigatiee ni conditions. in the PeyroLl Bre
This inveetigation ineluded personel lanved we-, with all personneL ID the Bran
present for duty, eiscuseioas with the (',eiel ,f the PiseeinDevision, with the
Acting Comptroller, snd with representatives e? the Plensgement Stsff familiar
with the area. Reference WRS Si.AC is tn the earlier inepector General'e Surtrey'
of the Comptroller's Office and to lest yeee's Management Staff report,ot the nnn,
Fiscal Divleion,
3. This investigation revealed a snbsttatnal baseC for many uf the all?ga-
eions contained in the letter of September 18. The eonditions uncovered 4,rt
discussed in detail below. Specific recoemeedatione for the correction of
deficiencies are set forth at the conclusion of this memorandum.
Discussion.
A. The Payroll Branch by its very nature has a number of inherent problems
which will always have some adverse effent on morale. The impact of these factor*
will vary according to the quality of supervision, but willsawaye be present to
some degree. Among these factors are:
1. Low Grade Structure
The Payroll Branch has a T/ fl of Of these, 1/ are GS-5's er
below. A Wage and Classification eudit nnde as a result of the IO's purvey
of ehe Coeperoller's Office in 17/5'4 reenIted in the npgradiue of low. suner-'
eisorYlveltions- 'These Weredinge heei provided :some additiohal in?ntive;
However, the fact remelts that the peva eriel. of Payroll Branch are predomi.-
mantle limited to GS-5 Positeoms,. This. low grade 114 particularly herd na
several married men with families recruited into the Branch durihg the past
several years.
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, ?
t`
work th VV- Ptorin...1 Branch coast5-4 o
,
cycle of auditing ant posting tacems.t4.1
according tc type, processing peraonney!C
e.operations repeated endlessly epoa thoAtande
?? first there ney be same Challenge in leerning
but for the more lart.eaigent ae onerout routi
, this:problem will become more acute as he -
? '''?vaver from the manual system of computing
tystedi.',, Several personnel whc were well s*
.?
e pftyroll,VOrt are seeking transfers to esce
-ethe drudgery of feeding machines. -
2. RoIrtinA
,
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at
ot4er t
ear,acc see
...4,oacies of th
a
it**. tvre4T,
,
?
develop.. n'
etet a AmU.
usiteLY 4 .
the MaZala
,
.eharact
CeeSee?
? .
IdmIted Opkortuniti for Advancement
? Payroll work does not particulerly
other areas of responeibtiity., rt te *sae.
eniesece one haR been tagged i. s 06.7!r0.12 ,
? #wivincameht
?er operation
it 14 difficult to obt
broader essignmeeti eiveressmeee e:sewbee in tha,r, eney. The chr
shortage of personnel in th* Brahch caetrthutes tot&1 difficulty of ob-e
taining atsegemeets .14e4Vhens )+,1,CEA:13 sepervisors aj understandably re-
luctame to release prnio1 withrne 6,4tte0.1.,1 repleeements. At the Presenti
time there are five people in the 131V-"-..4,1 Brach seeking assignments elaeeee '
Vhere in the Ageney witecet meh 0-oksp-4.
4. ?Ineeorable Deadlines
It is a eimple feet fliet the lieeecy eepects tc be paid on time
every other rridef. Ne fellure meet i eadline vould create more haver:
than a faille., on the part of the Pavrall Brawl. The perbonnel,
the more conscienetoes, operate centinucusly under the pressure of this
deadline. No excuses juotily failuee. At the present time the Braila is
operating at 80 per eeet ef eeneeity wile; the prospect of losing several
more individuals withoet repw.amegr In the. near future. New persoarlel
take tine to train. When the Braneh is consistently uatter strength, little
time to train new pesple is evallable and Locreasiegly the full burdez of
meeting deadlines feels upon ths few ell hanis,. It. additions there kr',
seasonel influxes ef snmeer emeloyeae, there are reenges in bond dedueteen
procedures, there are retroeceive eey Increeses? and in fact there are alveys
additional problem e throt won which meee be dealt wit). seethe?
the inexorable two week deadline, Some emeloyees are not teeperameetely
suited for pressure of this nature and undoubtedly same loss in persoenel.
stems fram this factor.
5. Ieprdinate Tee:Lover
At the present time, only 20 lf
board in the Beeneh, not jp4t1
Three of these are r.e.ttigniat, one iFoi
others are seeking seessigamene. e!eee
individuals hive lett the Branth
BEST COPT
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tee authorized T/0 ofillla re on
reseees ler leave tu
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This constitutes an inordinate turnover etich seriously affects the ability
of the Branch to perform its mission. The work of.thee.:BranchA though not
me,le
overwhelmingly. difficult, nevertheless requires coneid,Srsble.,tim.e in which,
to develop :sufficient proficiency to handle the 1.84-10u pt work exPeOid.
Furthermore, this inordinate turnaver increasei the - both4n mental.' '
., -,
strain andin physical overtime on the few:,inlividuale. ? ?,.. 4, . . k , , f .
hard core of the Branch. .
?-? ?
. B. In additiOUtothe foregoing sineral'Prob
most payroll units, the Payroll Branch in this 48.
resultingframits unusdal,aal secret responsibili
. Recruiting Difficulties
Surprisingly trough, there are acme individuals Who b:7'
and interest are favorably disposed to payroll work. These individuals are;
not large in number tut happily they do exist, usually among the ranks
theolder working women. The backbone of the present Payroll Bran& is
composed of about five such wcmen, some of whoa have been vith the Agency
-and its predecessorcsince'1945. Thejoal of recruiting should, of course
be to obtain as many of these individuals as possible. Vnfortunately ther:.
are several ol7stacles to realizing this objective. Vor One thing, there
the delay in security processing which ofte4'means that an ialividual
specially recruited for payrdll work will find and take another job of a
similar nature before his clearance is apprcived. This UNIMA that the Pay-
roll Branch is forced to take many individuals from the Clerical Pool whose
aptitude and interest in payroll work are lov. Furthermore, neny of these
clerk-typiets were drawn to the Agency by the lure of intelligence and the
prospects of overseas duty. When individuals of this nature find thomeselves.
assigned to the Payroll Branch they frequently become disaffected and resigmm
One resignation occurred during the Course of the investigation for
precisely this reason. /he individual concerned was an attraCtive yol
woman from California, with over two yeare of Lege, end a background ic
technical writing.-Anacileg her Lu Payroll B.nch. though perhaps under-
standable because of the personnel shortage, , .reVestheless an artreoe
ease of misassignment as she reigned from the Welcy within 90 days
seriously disaffected. In a DD/P area divition she probably would have
been a happy and contented employee. The Agency cannot afford rep ted
instances of such misassignment. The solution requires greeter coordina-
tion between the Comptroller and the Director of Personnel to.ineetre that
the Payroll Branch iE given a legitiewAe opportun1ty to obtain from the 1:
Pool those-individuale who by temperamelt and background are most ip*
adjust to payroll type wort. The prObl'ea Is acute for there are on1Y PIA&
people out of an autborited etrer*mh-ofillwho reeaonably coten!..
the present Payroll Brench UnleAsrru-,ing is intensified and mnre
properly directed, the Branch ia ,ficed with an icsoluble pereonnel prob.Lm.
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2. Lack of Agana" Administrative Discipline
In addition to Its other problems, the Payroll Branch is to a large
extent at the mercy of unit TWe. clerks throughout the Agana'. Payroll pro-
cedures require that all 'MIA's be received in the Payroll Branch by 3:00 p.m.
on the Mb:3day immediately following ? Triday parlay. In addition if the
Branch is to,expeditionslY Precise' and poet the informetion from ihe 71140
such information must be accurate and entered according to standard in-
structions. Imre in TILL's require the paYroll clerks to go through
time-consueing process of cheieldngbeck:wi originating component
Ander to correct the TWO and insure that
are properly Paid.
It is an undeniablefact"that in this Agen 's are ,frequently la*
and characterized byvidespread errors and it$iiOs. The Mansgeneot, guff
report isieued in 'the mummer of 1955 out this deficiency in detail
and further concluded that the efforts to i4stitute machine posting of lea*
data in the summer of 1955 failed primarilybeeause errors in the %A's
so videspread and frequent that an unacceptable amount of time had to be
' devoted to manual corrections.
The Chief of the Perron Branch considers his number one problem to
be the inaccuracies in the MA's and the failure of Agency administrative
personnel generally to adhere to the proviepos of applieable regulations.
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He further complains that existing regulatory issuances particularly Tenta-
tive Regulation are vague and imprecise, and that his efforts to
tighten administrative procedures-have been unsucosesfel. In this area of
administrative efficiency the Agency compares in a markedly unfavorable WY
to the FM Mich of the success and low cost Obtained by the FBI in its
payroll procedures stems from the tight discipaine within that organisation. .
This is not discipline ;welly for the sake of regimentation but discipline
aimed at making the work of ell individuals easier. Agency efforts to date
to obtain greater accuracy and promptness in the etibmiesion of Telik's have
been unsatisfactory. The Payroll Branch suffers as a consequence and is,
of coursep.personaLlypowerless to correct the situation.' ,
C. The foregoinginnigeaphs point out problems generally characteristic
of the Payroll Branch in CIA. Taken as a whole,
m they are serious and require
corrective station. Movereri tit*. are not in thoeselvee the sole amuse for the
.recent demoralizing and Chaotic period which among other things led to the
Septewber 18 letter "of oompleint. The cumulative effect of these generally
recognized factors set the stage; but it required a serious supervisory error
to precipitate the demoralizing conditions uncovered in this investigation.
- 1. For the pest several year* the Office of the Comptroller, in
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collaboration with the Management Staff, has been giving serious thought .
and study to ehapging the Agency vouchered payroll system from a manual
"exception" beeis to a machine "computation" basis. StUdies have been'
prepared and consultations held with other Government agencies, notably
the 2131, the Navy Department and the General Accounting Office. In April
of this year a staff study vas submitted to the Comptroller recommending
.the introduction of the computation .system. The study not only recommealed
the Introduction of the computation system but also called for the transfer
or the Payroll Branch, from Fiscal Division to the Machine Records Division.
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Introduction of the computation system was apparently approved but
decision on the physical transfer of the Payroll Branch was withheld
, pending A. trial of the computation system'.
2. At approximately the same time, because of continuing low morale
in the Payroll Branch, a new Branch Chief was recruited froa the Matthias
&wards Division. This new Bran& Chief took over in May 1956, and in
Jane, under. hie directiee, the aomputation system was instituted. The
rsonnel of the Breach weft divided dn the dearlbility of the change
but in general were willing to go along with the oomputation SYstesas
suCh: However, the change to the comPutatiOn systess was accompanied
lhotherand, sore drastie change to a fUnctighalised breakdown of duti
within the Payroll Branoh. Prior to that time, each payroll clerk vas
&Weasel a vouchered aria or block of payroll oards for which he or She
was solely responsible including all processing frail the receipt of TAA's
through final posting. This was known as the block system and gave each
payroll clerk a goal and a sense of responsibility and pride in the successful
administration of a particular segmeot of thlvtortal Agency payroll. The
functionalised system, however, was prediowbei on the belief that every
individual performs a particular phase of the payroll procedure more ef-
ficiently than some other segment of the procedure. The object therefore
of the functionalised system was to have those clerks who audited fastest
do all the auditing; those who filed fastest do all the filing; those who
--operated adding machines most efficiently do all the adding. The intro-
? duction of this functiodalised system completely demoralised the Branch. .
Not one of the 19 individuals interviewed, other than the Branch Chief,
had anything good to may about the functionalised wystam. In fact, without
teaception they blamed the effort to introduce this system for the recent
chaos in the payroll system, for the excessive low morale, and for most of
the other troubles of the Branch.
'or
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3. These troUblewprOved to be numerous. For one thing, under .the
functionalised system no one person was responsible for a given block of .
accounts and therefOre no one vas Abbe to answer inqpiries with awassurance.
The vouchered payroll. of this Agency became a sort of gra bag with each
,clark doing a piece here amd a piece there. Pride in work was destroyed
and in its place V16101144 and complaining about who vas doing the most
work became comp& '
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4? ften more serious.was the excessive overtime imposed on the Branch
in an effort to make the system work. Since Jay I. the Branch has worked
1,440 hours of overtime. .7tis is over 16 per 'cent of the total working
time of the Branch. Furtharm6re, this additional workload was not carried
by all personnel of the Branch equally. Five of the Branch personnel
present forduty.worked little or no overtime mostly for good and suffizient
reasons. The remaLming'15 had to carry the entire load, The amount of over-
time worked by some of these individuals is staggering. One woman worked
149 hours of overtime in this three month period. Six others worked in
excess of 100 hours of overtime in the same period. There is no question
but that this onerous overtime resulted in frayed nerves and overwrought -
personnel.
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.5... It is true that overtime waE, placed, on a voluntary basis al4i th.st
no one was verbally pressured to contribute to the overtime work. However,
when the work is there and mat be done the conscientious employee feels a
compulsion to do It. Within Payroll Branch the pressures of the work and
the inexorable deadlines compelled the performance of overtime. In the
face of such conditions it la specious to say that overtime is on a "volini
tary" basis: Some individuals eppreciate SOM4 overtime as a means of eariing
more money; however within Paymil Branch some of the most conscientious:
?employees, including section chiefs, worked themselves to near exhaustion.
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5
_ 6. Furthermore, the inability of the *roll clerks to deal effeett
with .telephone requests for information added to the sense of frustratiOre
induced by the functional system. Many people expreseed the belief thai'''
some recent resignations for "personal reasons" really had their source i
the confusion and demoralization associatedvith the functional syetem.
an example, one of the most hard working and capable of the supervisory
personnel in the Branch has submitted her resignation effective October 20.
She states as her reason that she must drive her son, who is an Agency em-
ployee with a badly damaged heert, to work. Since Ahe does not have a
parking apace the mist leave home at 6:00 a.m, in the morning in order to:
drive him to work and then secure a parking place along Ohio Drive. Oare-
ful discussion with this employee revealed that she has no other job and
will have to find one when the leaves the Agency. She loves payroll work,
has two sons in the Agency and batically does not want to leave. However,
she is Overworked and distraught by conditions and feels that only a resigns-
-tion-vill solve her prOblem. Her loss will, be a serious blow to the Branch
and the reasons behind this resignation are certainly not consistent with
the Agency's repeatedly expressed intereet in the Welfare of its people. ,
This may well be a ease where & parking apace should be provided for cam-
'passionate reasons. If this personal problem is solved it wtll probably save
a valuable amplqyee for the Agency and will in addition hay, a very healthy
effect on morale in the Branch generally. . .
7. The Branch Chief recruited from Machine Records Division in NeYs '
cannot be held priaarily responsible for the chaos created by the functional
system which he introduced. BA is a young G8-9 whose entire experience lay
in the machine records area. HA viewed the problems of the Payroll Branch,
,at least initially, in terms of his previous experience and to him such
experience indicated that the fUnctional system had much to offer in in-
creased effic1endy. Be tax have also felt that the decision to introduce
the computation method of payroll tabulating inferred introduction of the
functional division Of work as well, although the 11#100 by no means follow.
Inquiries indicate that the Management Staff, though favoring the cowuta-
tion method of tabulating payrolls, is opposed to a functionalized division
of work. The Management Staff further advised that not even the FBI with
all its efficiency and discipline has undertaken a functional division of
work because of its adverse effect on the morale of the pay-roll clerks.
I8. Even, though the personnel in the Brandh opposed the Brsnch Chief's
decision to introduce the fUnctionalited division of work, my of them
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nonftneless sense his sincerity and letermination end feel that het
the makings of a good Chief once he hes learned more about payroU'o
tions from the non-machine point of view. The Branch 04ime, himself
atter three months of experimentation realized that t.helunctionali
method would not work and on.24 gePteniber, vitbout any kboele4Be ot
impending 10.investigationo be Abandoned the system 4;4040'
the computation gystesuof tabulating. The Bran,* Chief .feels the a
failed because of polar Agency discipline resultiagAb an
of errors in MA's and :because of hi0 inability -mbbiXiae,a
spirit within the Branch. :Actually the faie, bepause it
Anharently,otintrary to the Inman values
personnel in the Branch felt vary
to the machines, ad that :the systemises
take no pride in their U*.
9. irrespective of the reseals, it ist? ear that the system:faLl
completely 'and that in the proceseit neer* Ur. the Brandi apart.'
inescapable .fact is that a new Brand; Cklef was permitted to introduce
fundamental procedural change opposed by responsible members of the.
contrary to the views di the Manwmment Staff, and Apparently without
. knowledge of higher echelon supervisory personnel. The Branch Chile s
cerely felt that he use doing the right thing for the benefit of the 4,640,
Re may have felt that he was expected to make this change. The record?ie,
uncle ar on thia point however it is unmistakablY clear that at the Division
Chief level and highe;.thsre was a serious supervisory failure in not being
aware of the change, in not exploring it fully, and in not passing judgment.,
upon a decision so crucial in its iMX641 on the morale and veil being of
20 people.. The error here must be ascribed-priMarily to supervisory levels
higher than the Branch Chief concerned.
10. With the abandonment of the functionellsed system, the major causeof the recent unrest in the Payroll Branch has been remoVe and in feet use
removed prior to this investigation. The Brandin Chief is sincere and capable.
He has learned from this Mistake and if properly .supported in the manner
recommended below he should be able to bring the Branch to an acceptable
level of performance. Bdwever, in order to prevent any reourrence of this
unhappy situation,..and in Order to insure continued improvement in the Pay-
roll Branch, the following recommendations are made.
RECOMMENDATIONS
A. It is recommended that:
1. -2be ED/8 e,damoteh2the Comptrqller icathe ewer:view), failure within
hir organization resulting in the Chaotic and 'demoralised conditions in the
Pwall'Branoh in recent months.
2. The DOB direct the Controller and the Director of Personnel to
,..onfer and establish procedures which will insure that the Payroll Branch
la given a legitimate opportunity to recruit personnel frum the Pool who,
b'rtImparament and background, are most art to adjust to payroll work.
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3, The 1E0/8 take atwia measures as may be necessary to tw;dr
istxil.tive discipline Nrithin the Agency including the?tightening?
-*,401nletrat1ve procedures and the enfo,rcament of applicable re=galet
The WM direct the Comptroller to examine the equity and j Ai tt1 A,-
tion of need for a parking space in the Alcott U.
QtLOtz to provide such a perking space should tbt fact e 5o
warrant..
? Addressee
JEST .c,,ofv*f
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1600011?111.11111
111, ;irkpatrick
Inspector General
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