County stuck on employee overpayments

OVERPAYMENT

We thought we had employees that were being underpaid so we started reviewing the pay scales and we found out that the pay scale was incorrect. There’s no way the employees would have known the pay scale was incorrect.”

Karin Weymeyer, Lee County Human Resources officer

LEE COUNTY – The Lee County Board is looking into several employees who were overpaid due to inconsistencies with internal pay scales.
Discussions got a little cantankerous with Supervisor Chair Ginger Knisley gaveling the session back into order after Roslyn Garcia of the Lee County Attorney’s office and Human Resources officer Karin Wehmeyer went back and forth on the issue about Iowa Code and county policy.
According to Wehmeyer, the county had overpaid two employees, but didn’t require the funds to be repaid because the error wasn’t realized until an investigation was conducted into the pay scales at Lee County EMS.
The overpayment amounted to $1,941.65, and it was determined that the overpayments were still within payroll budgeting of the department. However, the discussion centered on a disagreement in past practice of repayment and consistency in mitigating the issue.
A resolution was put in front of the board created by Attorney Amy Reasoner with Lynch Dallas out of Cedar Rapids. The resolution indicated the county had a past practice of not requiring repayment of overpayments of wages.
“Whereas, there has been a past practice within Lee County that the Board of Supervisors has not required repayment of an overpayment of wages and IPERS where employees did not know nor should have known of the overpayment of wages through a review of their pay tables and/or pay stubs.”
The resolution went on to indicate that the county would ratify the payroll without requirement of repayment, correct pay tables immediately, and payroll be continued with corrected pay amounts.
The resolution was tabled by the supervisors pending additional research into the issue of whether there is indeed a precedent for not requiring repayment. Lee County Supervisor Denise Fraise said there is no such precedent, and Garcia, representing Lee County Attorney Ross Braden, who was engaged in a trial at the time of the meeting, said Braden’s opinion was not requiring repayment is misappropriation of taxpayer funds.
“I know two instances where people we required to pay back,” Fraise said.
Garcia said Braden wasn’t consulted on the issue.
“He did want me to say that it’s a misappropriation of tax dollars,” she said.
She said in the past it hasn’t come to the board and rested with the county auditor to address the issue. She said state code requires state employees to pay back overpayments and not making them repay opens the door to future issues within the county.
“And a resolution makes it that if they were underpaid, the department head could say they aren’t going to back pay them either,” Garcia said.
Fraise said the attorney’s office was the department that had two employees repay overpayments. She said there was an instance of two sheriff’s department employees being overpaid who didn’t get a raise the following year. Tony Keefe said he’s had an employee at LeeComm have to repay wages. Wehmeyer said there was one employee in the county who left prior to completing the probationary period who had to pay back some funds, and two additional employees have been overpaid.
“It looks to me like we need more research on this,” Knisley said.
Fraise said she would like to know where Reasoner got the information that the county never made employees pay overpayments back.
Wehmeyer said the issue was with the pay scale itself.
“This was not an oversight, an accident. They were going off the pay scale, and it was wrong. These things happen. But the pay scale was wrong two years ago and there were plenty of people who could have caught it since then, but didn’t,” she said.
“We thought we had employees that were being underpaid so we started reviewing the pay scales and we found out that the pay scale was incorrect. There’s no way the employees would have known the pay scale was incorrect.”
Garcia said whether there was or was not knowledge of the error is moot and carries no legal bearing on the issue.
Supervisor Garry Seyb motioned to table the issue until there is further guidance obtained from Braden. Supervisors Holmes and Fraise agreed a motion to table wasn’t needed as Braden had already rendered an opinion. They both voted against tabling the discussion.
The motion to table passed 3-2, with Seyb and Wondra voting to table and Knisley breaking the tie with a vote to table. Fraise asked that the county generate a firm policy on the matter of overpayments.