Statute of limitations on CA. public employee overpayment payback?

[hippo]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? California

I am a firefighter for a city in CA. Yesterday I got an email from our personnel dept. saying they just discovered that some 5 1/2 years ago a personnel officer no longer with the city made an erroneous notation in my salary incentives that gave me an extra 5% of base pay for the last 5 1/2 years. I didn't catch it because our paychecks vary by several hundred dollars every pay period based on FSLA, overtime, holiday credit payouts, etc. but apparently it went on all these years every paycheck and nobody ever realized it. The city is accepting full responsibility for the error.

So now they are saying they would like me to pay back the whole thing over the next 52 paychecks (2 years.) I am an honest guy and will pay back what I legally should, but it will be a $25,000 or so payback I think which will be an enormous amount to payback in such a relatively short time compared to how long it was accrued.

My question is whether there is a statute of limitations for CA public employees on how for back an error must be payed. According to another post in this forum, and at least one ehow page I found, it appears that the limitation may be 3 years from the paycheck where the error occurred, but that post didn't cite the actual relevant case law or statutes I can show to my union reps.

Can anyone help me with this? I have two daughters in college I am supporting. Thank you!

 

[swalsh411]

I don't know what the SOL is but I know they can't take it out of your check without permission. If you do in fact owe the money (and you should review the records carefully to confirm this) then why does it matter if some essentially arbitrary time limit has passed? That doesn't change whether or not you were overpaid.

The SOL would be a defense if you were sued for this. At this point they are just asking you.

 

[hippo]

I don't know what the SOL is but I know they can't take it out of your check without permission. If you do in fact owe the money (and you should review the records carefully to confirm this) then why does it matter if some essentially arbitrary time limit has passed? That doesn't change whether or not you were overpaid.

The SOL would be a defense if you were sued for this. At this point they are just asking you.

Thanks for the response. I guess the SOL goes towards the enormity of the amount and the hardship the repayment would cause. I guess to take an example to the extreme, say they had made this error when I first was hired 25 years ago and then came to me and said "you owe us $125,000, pay us now."

Obviously is does no one any good to bankrupt their own employee because of an error they made which was completely their own fault. I would think that would be exactly why SOL might be set up to stop a non at fault employee from being ruined financially by an employer error.

 

[swalsh411]

Somebody will come along and provide the SOL (if it exists).

They legally cannot deduct it from your check without your permission. (and even with your permission it's still questionable in California). They can legally fire you for refusing to pay it back regardless of how long ago it was unless you have an employment contract or other binding agreement. Are you in a Union?

Have you reviewed the records to confirm for yourself that you were overpaid? Don't just take their word for it.

 

[You Are Guilty]

Are you a member of a union (or have some other sort of employment contract)? That would be the first layer to look to. Barring that, if I recall correctly, public employees are treated differently than private workers in CA. I believe the SOL is 3 years, however, computing the start date for the SOL to apply may be tricky (e.g., date of actual discovery; date error "should have" been discovered; never, since you are still receiving paychecks, etc).
Source:
http://www.documents.dgs.ca.gov/OHR/HRMemos/2003/03-006.doc

Information on the timing/method of the repayment can be found here (sub 7):
http://sam.dgs.ca.gov/TOC/8700/8776.htm

Good luck!

 

[eerelations]

The City is most definitely not accepting full responsibility for the error if it's expecting you to rectify it.