Question: During our negotiations, we realized that 10 & 11 month employees are overpaid since 1999. What is your recommendation in correcting this error?
Response: It is clear that you have a very difficult situation occurring that can negatively impact both negotiations and/or morale. The difficult thing is that when employees have been overpaid and the total amount is not considered insignificant, the overpayment could be considered a gift of public funds if the district were to do nothing after the error was discovered.
Here are some steps you may want to take to correct the overpayment, but please remember that your own legal counsel is going to have to advise you on what to do as they would be the entity to represent you in future discussions and/or actions depending on what occurs when the overpayment is taken care of. Make sure that you work with them before acting on this advice, as these steps are informational only and are not to be considered as legal advice.
Some potential steps to take on the overpayment of salary is as follows:
1. Notify employees in writing that the district thinks an error has been made which resulted in an overpayment.
2. Offer to meet with employee to discuss the overpayment. During the discussion advise that the district will make changes prospectively with the next payroll. Begin the discussion of repayment (in computing the amount of the overpayment the district is limited to the prior 3 years as that is the statute of limitations.)
3. If agreement is reached on repayment, the district can deduct some portion from each monthly warrant until amount is repaid.
4. If no agreement is reached, district must sue and get a court order because "self-help" by doing unilateral salary deductions is not legal.
5. Remember that the employee has right to union or legal representation.
6. Or, upon advice of legal counsel the district could "write-off" prior overpayments. Some legal counsels write these letters where the costs of collection are likely to exceed the recovery.
3/30/04
