Reply to Gov’t saying I was overpaid and they want $$ back

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]you're earnings and leave statement is available online- depending on the agency on a different site, but you should have gotten sign in details when you started. Compare that to what you were hired as to the published OPM tables. They should all match, if not find out who in your business unit works with HR- they will almost certainly be more competent than whoever you call in HR and will be able to take it to someone who can fix it  [/quote]

It's great to have the details in your ELS but you have to know what you are looking for.

About 8 years ago, the FERS program changed.  The first wave was to put new employees into FERS-RAE and then subsequent employees into FERS-FRAE.  That's a manual entry by HR and mistakes happen.  If I were to poll my office on the spot, I'd guess that 75% or more have no idea what program they are in, what the difference is, or what HR is supposed to be withholding. I bet a lot of people would have no idea what FERS is in the first place.  In those first couple years there were tons of issues with people getting put into the wrong FERS program through no fault of their own (that entry is solely done by HR so it has nothing to do with filling out a form wrong).

However, ignorance is no excuse under the law.  Federal HR is extremely complicated and you are expected to be an expert.  That means it's vital to understand your ELS and every penny that is being withheld.  The government always places the burden on the employee even though the government does shoddy HR work and keeps terrible records.

While not as common anymore, leave accrual is another issue that I've seen come up where HR improperly puts someone into a higher leave accrual earning rate.  If found, you'll be on the hook for the extra leave you were "overpaid" for.

In a previous job at a cabinet agency we saw these issues all the time and we waived debts in almost every case.  Rare was there ever evidence of fraud of malfeasance so we generally tried to make things right for our employees but that could have also been because we had a benevolent CFO.[/quote]

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