Summary: An examination at Coast Guard Headquarters (Washington, D.C.) of military pay records for the first half of 1976 indicated that most personnel were paid accurately, but controls can be strengthened.
A service-wide statistical survey of 299 pay records revealed that 41 had 46 errors amounting to $2,619, for an error rate of 13.7 percent. A statistical extrapolation indicates that service-wide, there may be 5,363 errors amounting to some $342,600 in the 39,118 pay records in the universe. Corrective action has already been undertaken on errors reported. Eleven errors were found in withholding rates for Federal income taxes, caused by carelessly using the wrong line or column of the tax tables. A small sample of 21 irregularly closed pay records showed an error rate of 19 percent, which could be a potential problem area. Previous experience in auditing irregularly closed pay records has shown a high incidence of error in final leave settlements, which could be mitigated by additional supervision and administration.
