ECC- Unrecovered Salary Overpayments to Former Staff Total $35.3M

Recommendation

1. The Auditor General Department (AuGD) notes the Commission’s efforts to strengthen the system of controls over the payment of subsidies to Early Childhood Practitioners (ECPs) to ensure that ECPs are not paid after they have been separated from the Early Childhood Institutions through the implementation of a Childcare Education Health and Development Integration System (CEHDIS). Notwithstanding, the ECC should continue its efforts, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information, to recover the outstanding amounts.
2. Additionally, the ECC should assess the collectability of the long outstanding receivables and where amounts are deemed uncollectible, seek approval through the Parent Ministry to have those amounts written off in keeping with the GoJ’s Write-off Policy.

JAMP Update

The ECC advised via email on March 30, 2026, that the outstanding overpayment balance for the period 2011 to 2023 is $34 million as of March 31, 2023. Since then, the agency collected approximately $5.7 million across FY 2023/24, FY 2024/25, and FY 2025/26 (to February 2026):

• FY 2023/24 — $1,464,255.07
• FY 2024/25 — $2,208,152.18
• FY 2025/26 (Apr 2025 – Feb 2026) — $1,999,855.02

Notwithstanding these efforts, a significant outstanding balance remains; after accounting for these collections, the estimated remaining balance is approximately $28 million, representing 83% of the March 2023 outstanding balance that remains uncollected.

To date, the ECC has provided no evidence of a formal collectability assessment having been conducted, and no formal write-offs of outstanding subsidy overpayments were identified across the period reviewed. No update on write-offs was provided.

For more detail, see ATI response below

ATI Responses

• ECC- Unrecovered Overpayment- ATI Response 2026