{"id":73576,"date":"2017-03-08T18:57:54","date_gmt":"2017-03-08T18:57:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/?p=73576"},"modified":"2017-03-08T18:57:54","modified_gmt":"2017-03-08T18:57:54","slug":"phoenix-backlog-for-parental-leave-disability-benefits-easing-lemay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/political\/phoenix-backlog-for-parental-leave-disability-benefits-easing-lemay.html","title":{"rendered":"Phoenix backlog for parental leave, disability benefits easing: Lemay"},"content":{"rendered":"<p \/>\n<p>Marie Lemay, the deputy\u00a0minister in charge of the troubled Phoenix pay\u00a0system,\u00a0is assuring public servants awaiting parental and disability payments that the government is finally approaching a &#8220;steady state&#8221; in processing their claims.<\/p>\n<p>The government has finally begun processing more transactions than it&#8217;s receiving, Lemay said during a regular Phoenix update Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is a very important milestone. It means that both the wait times and the overall number of pay requests awaiting processing will decrease,&#8221; said Lemay.\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Have a Phoenix story to tell?\u00a0Send us an\u00a0email<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">\u200b50,000 public servant tax slips reissued so far due to Phoenix pay problems<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">Federal public service unions want $75M Phoenix fund in federal budget<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Public Services and Procurement Canada has a service standard goal of\u00a0processing 95 per cent of claims within 20 days of receiving them.<\/p>\n<h2>Parental leave claims resolved by end of March<\/h2>\n<p>Lemay said\u00a0that standard is on track to be met by the end of March for parental leave claims, and by end of\u00a0April for disability claims. Those two priority areas were established in consultation with federal public service unions.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The vast majority of transactions at the pay centre that are outside of our service standards have been addressed and employees will start receiving their top-up payments by March 22,&#8221; said Lemay.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Complicated claims could take longer, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>With tax season\u00a0in full swing, Randy\u00a0Hewlett,\u00a0acting director general of Canada Revenue Agency, reminded federal employees\u00a0to contact the\u00a0pay centre if they\u00a0received overpayments so they can\u00a0make arrangements to repay the amount and receive an amended 2016 T4.\u200b<\/p>\n<p>At the last update on Feb. 21,\u00a0Public Services and Procurement Canada deputy minister Marie\u00a0Lemay\u00a0said\u00a0about 50,000 tax slips were reissued\u00a0and that more than\u00a02,000 public servants had\u00a0called the government&#8217;s pay centre with tax-related questions.<\/p>\n<p>The issues were supposed to have been resolved and correct slips issued\u00a0by Feb. 28,\u00a0Lemay\u00a0said at the time.\u00a0Public servants were asked to wait until Feb. 28 to print out their tax slips.<\/p>\n<h2>Dealing with financial hardship<\/h2>\n<p>So far,\u00a0438\u00a0public servants have submitted claims to be reimbursed for out-of-pocket expenses related to Phoenix, according to Alfred Tsang, executive director of Treasury Board&#8217;s claims office.<\/p>\n<p>Of those employees, 129\u00a0are requesting amounts above $500, Tsang said.<\/p>\n<p>The department has been providing regular updates on the Phoenix system and its\u00a0efforts to handle issues that have emerged since its rollout last year and tens of thousands of bureaucrats began reporting overpayments and underpayments.<\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p \/>\n<p \/>\n<p>Article source: http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/ottawa\/phoenix-technical-briefing-update-march-8-1.4013719?cmp=rss<\/a>\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Marie Lemay, the deputy\u00a0minister in charge of the troubled Phoenix pay\u00a0system,\u00a0is assuring public servants awaiting parental and disability payments that the government is finally approaching a &#8220;steady state&#8221; in processing their claims. The government has finally begun processing more transactions than it&#8217;s receiving, Lemay said during a regular Phoenix update Wednesday. &#8220;This is a very [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-73576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political","tag-political"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}