VICENZA, Italy — At the end of last year, Italian employees who work on American installations were updated on the status of a 33-year-old pay system that malfunctioned in July 2017, causing a backlog of family benefits and performance award payments.
Since then, progress has been made in the pay system, operated by the 266th Financial Management Support Center, which handles the paychecks of approximately 1,120 host nation employees both in Vicenza and at Camp Darby.
“I wanted to update everyone regarding the progress with Studio Centro srl of Vicenza. We began the contract with them back in March,” said Darryl McCoy, director of 266th Financial Management Support Center’s Italy Finance Center here.
He added that at the end of May they held several meetings with representatives of the local center, established in the late 1960s.
“We received the first training/demonstration session with the new Italian Local National Pay System (ILNPS).
“The first two phases of the contract were delivered [May 30] and are now being verified/tested by the Italy Finance Office team. Both were completed ahead of schedule, as Phase I was due June 1, and Phase II on June 30. Thus far, the company has behaved precisely as advertised, being quick to bring up questions, respond to requests, and the product demonstration/training was professional and very thorough. We are working with our IMO team to establish user accesses and controls to support this effort. The LN Pay team is very excited to start using and testing it,” he continued.
After describing the status of phases I and II, McCoy added that the company is confident about the next phase (Phase III), which will be delivered before July 15, highlighting that it will be —again— ahead of schedule as it is not due until the end of August.”
“We discussed the training of the local timekeepers and supervisors, and mutually agreed that although ready in July, it would be better if the actual training was performed closer to the service start date of the new ILNP,” he said.
According to McCoy, after demonstrating the training to the finance team, the actual service will start in November or December.
“This way it will be fresher in everyone's minds when we start the phased rollout of the time-and- attendance process to the units/organizations during the first months of 2019,” he said.
Already planning for the future, the company confirmed they have everything they need at this time to work on Phase IV requirements.
“Now that phases I and II have been delivered, we will be talking in detail with them regarding the accounting and disbursing portions, and focusing on testing the service so that we can provide them feedback on the build-out of our requirements within their platform,” he added.
Additionally, the LN Pay team continues to manage the old ILNPS and resolve program issues as they arise on a regular basis.
“All this work,” commented McCoy “has only been possible with the help of the staff at the 414th Contracting Support Brigade and the excellent staff in the LN Pay section within the Finance Office.
The LN Pay team has gone above and beyond to keep the old service running while working with Studio Centro to get a new service ready to take over. I’m very proud of the hard work and personal sacrifice the team has made to make this positive change possible.”
Once all phases are established, the last phase (Phase IV) will focus on U.S. Army payment and accounting systems. This section of the process is scheduled for the beginning of December with a functional payroll management start date of Jan. 1, 2019.
| Date Taken: | 07.01.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 07.27.2018 11:12 |
| Story ID: | 286027 |
| Location: | IT |
| Web Views: | 26 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Garrison guides improvements to Italian pay system, by Laura Kreider, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
