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City of Austin employees react to payroll mistake
The City of Austin has sent terms and conditions to employees that some say they do not feel comfortable agreeing to. This follows last month’s nearly $1.4 million payroll error in which the city accidentally overpaid government employees.
AUSTIN, Texas - The City of Austin has sent terms and conditions to employees that some say they do not feel comfortable agreeing to.
This follows last month’s nearly $1.4 million payroll error in which the city accidentally overpaid government employees.
The mistake is affecting hundreds of city employees, who are now required to repay all the money.
The backstory:
The City of Austin deposited a total of $1.4 million in overpayments into employees’ bank accounts last month.
Carol Gutherie, business manager of AFSCME Local 1624, said, "If you messed up their paycheck. It was your error," Gutherie said.
According to the city, a simple mistake triggered the glitch. When uploading a spreadsheet to Workday, a box was left blank, causing the system to override existing information used to determine whether a job is exempt or nonexempt from overtime.
Hundreds of City of Austin employees overpaid in error, totaling $1.4M
The city of Austin says hundreds of its employees were overpaid earlier this month to the tune of $1.4 million in total.
The confusion led the system to treat each week in the two-week pay period separately, resulting in some employees receiving nearly double their normal pay on March 13. The human resources team caught the error early and was able to notify impacted employees on March 12, before the paychecks hit the bank.
"I couldn't believe it. I have been working with the city for a little over 25 years. I don't recall this ever happening," Gutherie said.
Dig deeper:
The city began working quickly on a repayment plan to allow affected workers to return the overpaid funds over a set period. Two weeks later, human resources told employees the money would be deducted from their paychecks over their choice of one to four pay periods. Those who were overpaid by more than $5,000 were given the option to write a check.
On April 6, the city told those workers to sign an agreement selecting how they would return the money and gave them a deadline of April 10 to do so.
"This push to sign the contracts didn't go over well with the employees either, because they felt very intimidated. Like if they didn't get it signed right away, that something was going to happen," Gutherie said.
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PREVIOUS COVERAGE: City of Austin overpays employees after error
The city of Austin says hundreds of its employees were overpaid earlier this month to the tune of $1.4 million in total.
"They've been very frustrated, they don't trust the city," Gutherie said.
The city said it needed time to process and schedule the deductions before the first impacted paycheck goes out on May 8.
"I get they need to get everything back, but I think they just went about it wrong from the very beginning," Gutherie said.
As of the April 10 deadline, out of 675 impacted employees, 67 had not signed. As of this week, that number was fewer than 40.
The Source: Information from interviews conducted by FOX 7 Austin's Katie Pratt