Description: Injured workers in Ontario may have been surprised this week when the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) announced that more than 100,000 workers would be receiving payments to make up for being “shortchanged” over the last twenty years. These payments will total approximately $42 million. The situation can be attributed to a coding error that occurred 20 years ago when the WSIB was implementing a cost-of-living component to its formula for calculating compensation to injured workers. CEO Jeff Lang said “We’re not happy it took us so long to find out that we’d made the mistake,” and he noted internal controls are in place to hopefully present future occurrences.

Date:  September 13, 2023

Source:  stcatherinesstandard.ca

 Link: https://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/thestar/we-screwed-up-wsib-to-pay-out-42m-after-coding-error-shortchanged-100-000-injured/article_753699fb-39aa-5801-a842-fba639c777db.html

Discussion points:

1) As a student, have you ever been injured on the job and received worker’s compensation?

2) If you were an accountant responsible for establishing internal controls at the WSIB, what do you think you would implement to help prevent future problems of this nature?

3) Page 7.1 of Wiley’s Financial Accounting: Tools for Business Decision-Making includes a discussion on the five primary components of internal control. Which of these five do you believe would have been the most important in detecting – and then correcting – the payment issues at WSIB?