Historical salary deduction.... their mistake not mine

Irishuna

So I check my wage slip this morning ( I'm in the HSE West) there is over €400 missing from my wages. So I phone finance dept . They did a bit of checking and saw that a sick cert from 2015 had not been submitted until last week from my managers.

So I'm being deducted my salary for the duration of my sick leave from 2015! Can they do this? I was not notified by my managers of their error (I had submitted my sick certs on time etc) and annual leave card signed by my manager and me back in 2015.
Can anyone help me!!!

Meeeee79

what does your contract state regarding sick leave? Im guessing your query is whether or not they are allowed to do it after the fact as opposed to if they are allowed to deduct pay for sick leave in general?

seamus

Short answer is that yes, they can do this as the money was overpaid in error.

Long answer is that you should have been contacted first and the deduction made in a way that was appropriate to your circumstances - i.e. affordable.

Irishuna

seamus wrote: »

Short answer is that yes, they can do this as the money was overpaid in error.

Long answer is that you should have been contacted first and the deduction made in a way that was appropriate to your circumstances - i.e. affordable.

Yes Seamus!. According to my manager ( who actually DID sent in the sick cert in 2015) cannot believe they made such a deduction without notifying me in advance and perhaps working out a payment instalment. The fault is with the finance office, according to my union the have sneakily done this before to cover up errors and then bully anyone who questions it. !!

It's so disrespectful to an employee of 20 years.
I'm not sure if I have any recourse.

seamus

Irishuna wrote: »

I'm not sure if I have any recourse.

Not really.

At best you might get them to give you the €400 back and then work out a repayment plan. Which is a lot of hassle unless you desperately need that money.

You could submit a formal complaint via HR, but as you're public service you'll probably just get a load of rules and procedural nonsense thrown back at you.

fg1406

If they've already done it, there's not a lot you can do now. However, I would recommend that you submit a complaint to the Payroll Manager as this completely contravenes the HSE's own guidelines. Payroll operate under NFR04 for recoupment of overpayments. See www.hse.ie/eng/staff/Resources/Financial%20Regulations/ayroll.pdf on page 5. Under 4.6.3. Where recoupments exceed €200 written communication to the employee should be instigated first.

jimmycrackcorm

Irishuna wrote:

Yes Seamus!. According to my manager ( who actually DID sent in the sick cert in 2015) cannot believe they made such a deduction without notifying me in advance and perhaps working out a payment instalment. The fault is with the finance office, according to my union the have sneakily done this before to cover up errors and then bully anyone who questions it. !!

Assuming the deduction is due to you needing to claim SW, did you not notice you were overpaid at the time?

Irishuna

fg1406 wrote: »

If they've already done it, there's not a lot you can do now. However, I would recommend that you submit a complaint to the Payroll Manager as this completely contravenes the HSE's own guidelines. Payroll operate under NFR04 for recoupment of overpayments. See www.hse.ie/eng/staff/Resources/Financial%20Regulations/ayroll.pdf on page 5. Under 4.6.3. Where recoupments exceed €200 written communication to the employee should be instigated first.

Cheers for that. Will do. I know it must be against policy and guideline etc.

mel.b

fg1406 wrote: »

If they've already done it, there's not a lot you can do now. However, I would recommend that you submit a complaint to the Payroll Manager as this completely contravenes the HSE's own guidelines. Payroll operate under NFR04 for recoupment of overpayments. See www.hse.ie/eng/staff/Resources/Financial%20Regulations/ayroll.pdf on page 5. Under 4.6.3. Where recoupments exceed €200 written communication to the employee should be instigated first.

Interesting. I had an 'overpayment' deducted at the start of 2016 related to 'underpayment of PRD' dating back as far as 2011. The overpayment was a bit over €1000 gross that was deducted with absolutely no warning or letter in advance. Luckily I am signed up to online payslips and was able to identify that this deduction had occured several days before I actually received my pay. I immediately queried it and after a little bit of investigation, payroll admitted that they had made a mistake and that I hadn't underpaid at all and were able to run a special pay for me the day after payday to return the money to me. If I'd known they had guidelines about this I would have kicked up more of a stink to make sure they follow procedure. In the end I was just glad to get the money back!

Irishuna

mel.b wrote: »

Interesting. I had an 'overpayment' deducted at the start of 2016 related to 'underpayment of PRD' dating back as far as 2011. The overpayment was a bit over €1000 gross that was deducted with absolutely no warning or letter in advance. Luckily I am signed up to online payslips and was able to identify that this deduction had occured several days before I actually received my pay. I immediately queried it and after a little bit of investigation, payroll admitted that they had made a mistake and that I hadn't underpaid at all and were able to run a special pay for me the day after payday to return the money to me. If I'd known they had guidelines about this I would have kicked up more of a stink to make sure they follow procedure. In the end I was just glad to get the money back!

Seems you were lucky!!
Me not so. My line managers, it turns out DID submit the cert on time ie: 2015. And she can't believe someone in finance , in error, didn't process it and just thought they'd 'slip' it in 2 years later without informing me. She's furious and chasing it up.

Meeeee79

Irishuna wrote: »

Seems you were lucky!!
Me not so. My line managers, it turns out DID submit the cert on time ie: 2015. And she can't believe someone in finance , in error, didn't process it and just thought they'd 'slip' it in 2 years later without informing me. She's furious and chasing it up.

OP im a bit confused,is your fury over the fact that they didnt let you know or the fact that pay is being deducted? Im presuming your contract states that sick leave is not paid for and so you were in fact knowingly overpaid at the time you took the sick leave? In that case what exactly is you manager chasing up and what or how are you hoping to get this resolved?

Irishuna

Meeeee79 wrote: »

OP im a bit confused,is your fury over the fact that they didnt let you know or the fact that pay is being deducted? Im presuming your contract states that sick leave is not paid for and so you were in fact knowingly overpaid at the time you took the sick leave? In that case what exactly is you manager chasing up and what or how are you hoping to get this resolved?

Fury for lack of respect shown to staff, that an error was made in 2015, and alteration made without notification.
I'm not sure if you understand the difficulty : it's NOT sick leave deduction, but sick leave deduction 2 years after the event, without prior notice to an employee of their error and arrangement of payment method in instalments or some sort.
€400 may not be a significant amount of money to some: but without prior knowledge to me it's massive!! I, like many more depend on my salary to come in so my finances are in order to dd' s etc
I , and my line manager would like at the very least an apology!!

GerardKeating

Irishuna wrote: »

Seems you were lucky!!
Me not so. My line managers, it turns out DID submit the cert on time ie: 2015. And she can't believe someone in finance , in error, didn't process it and just thought they'd 'slip' it in 2 years later without informing me. She's furious and chasing it up.

I had a issue once (in Private sector) where they are incorrectly calculating PAYE/PRSI for me, and overpaying, and notified the Payroll Dept, and regularly complained every other pay day (paid weekly).

Eventually the over payments amounted to 2/3 weeks salary and I demanded a payment plan to rectify the situation, since i could not afford to pay it back in one go.

So eventually (and perhaps just to stop me annoying them so much) they wrote off the amount...

Meeeee79

Irishuna wrote: »

Fury for lack of respect shown to staff, that an error was made in 2015, and alteration made without notification.
I'm not sure if you understand the difficulty : it's NOT sick leave deduction, but sick leave deduction 2 years after the event, without prior notice to an employee of their error and arrangement of payment method in instalments or some sort.
€400 may not be a significant amount of money to some: but without prior knowledge to me it's massive!! I, like many more depend on my salary to come in so my finances are in order to dd' s etc
I , and my line manager would like at the very least an apology!!

I wasn't giving out I was merely trying to understand what the issue actually is.I completely understand that ti was done 2 years after fact and that most people, me included, cannot afford to have €400 taken out of their salary like this.

Are you hoping that they will set up an instalment plan for you to pay it back?

Irishuna

Financial regulations out of the HSE horses mouth!!

Irishuna

Meeeee79 wrote: »

I wasn't giving out I was merely trying to understand what the issue actually is.I completely understand that ti was done 2 years after fact and that most people, me included, cannot afford to have €400 taken out of their salary like this.

Are you hoping that they will set up an instalment plan for you to pay it back?

I would have thought making a fuss would be futile. But my co worker is a siptu rep and she knows that legally they are obliged to contact me and work out a payment plan. And that I'm not to let it sir, follow it through get refunded then make arrangements for instalment repayments! I dunno

Irishuna

Picture of regulation attached from website

Irishuna

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

Assuming the deduction is due to you needing to claim SW, did you not notice you were overpaid at the time?

I don't think so. It was 2 years ago, I don't have my copy of the social welfare form that makes up for the deduction.(which employees fill in and send off automatically? )

Which is unusual because I have a copy of all the rest. ... shruging my shoulders here... I just don't know

Riskymove

You work in the HSE?
Don't they have paid sick leave?

fg1406

Riskymove wrote: »

You work in the HSE?
Don't they have paid sick leave?

You get paid minus social welfare.