City paid health insurance for dead employees

June 27--NEWBURYPORT -- Two veteran city councilors and a new human-resources manager have combined to recoup the city more than a quarter of a million dollars that had been paid for employee health benefits in error, municipal leaders say.

Council President Tom O'Brien and Ward 3 Councilor Robert Cronin in recent months expressed concern that the city might have been paying health benefits for municipal employees who had left the city payroll, or had died.

For calendar years 2011 -- 2014, a total of $270,000 was paid out in health insurance benefits for employees that "became ineligible," city officials say.

With the help of Tracy Maynard, HR director hired in the past year by Mayor Donna Holaday, this irregularity was brought to the attention of the city's insurer.

"To date the city has recouped almost $260,000 and the remaining $10K is being collected via individual payment plans," said Cronin. "Our new HR director has been a great addition to the staff, and really knows her job."

O'Brien said, "I'm pleased to report success on this project. We did our jobs as councilors, and now we have a system in place to make sure this doesn't happen again."

City officials said that there were cases of deceased public employees having health payments made in their names.

In other situations, the city was still paying premiums for workers who had left City Hall for other jobs.

The exact number of names involved was not available at press time but O'Brien suggested perhaps 20-30 over the years.

Holaday, at a recent meeting of the council, said that the city did not have a full-time HR director until a couple years ago. She suggested no effective system was in place to monitor the payment of health premiums.

The city has had a roster of more than 1,000 employees -- present and past -- but now Maynard has been instrumental in developing a system that monitors the accounts of workers, municipal leaders say.

Former HR director was Jennifer Lamarre, who left about a year ago to take another position.

Maynard, who started early in 2015, was instrumental in working with councilors to identify a problem, and get reimbursement from the city's municipal insurer, municipal leaders say.

Cronin said, "Since Tracy took over we have recouped all expenditures by showing death certificates. I am happy to say that both Council President O'Brien and I identified a flaw in the system and that the mayor's office responded and made changes in the system to correct the problem.

"Tracy Maynard was instrumental in making the fixes and getting the system back on track."

Maynard has more than 20 years HR experience, and companies for which she has worked include Unisys Corp., Kurzweil Applied Intelligence, Swan Technologies, and RSA Security.

She also held an HR leadership post for MASCO -- Medical Academic and Scientific Community Organization, Inc., an organization serving the Longwood medical community in Boston.

O'Brien said, "They did pay for deceased people and many others that did not belong over the years since 2006.

"Because of Bob and I, the city has been paid back over $250,000 with more to come from active employees. We should be thanked for bringing this forward because the previous HR director appeared to let things get way behind.

"I have faith In the HR department now that this will not happen again."

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