P.S. Docket No. DCA 17-206


January 2, 2018

In the Matter of the Debt Collection Act Petition

MATTHEW L. THOMAS v. UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE

P.S. Docket No. DCA 17-206

APPEARANCE FOR PETITIONER:
Albert E. Lum
Scialla Associates, Inc.

APPEARANCE FOR RESPONDENT:
John E. Moore
Labor Relations Specialist

FINAL DECISION UNDER THE DEBT COLLECTION ACT OF 1982

Matthew Thomas filed a Petition under the Debt Collection Act challenging the United States Postal Service’s debt assessments for salary overpayments totaling $13,436.88.1  I deny the Petition, ruling in favor of the Postal Service.

FINDINGS OF FACT

  1. The Postal Service has employed Mr. Thomas as Postmaster of Waynesville, Missouri since 2013 (Tr. 38).
  2. On March 20, 2016, Mr. Thomas was charged with two felonies unrelated to his employment (Resp. Exh. 4; Tr. 39-40).
  3. Based on those charges, the Postal Service issued a Notice of Proposed Indefinite Suspension on April 5, 2016.  The proposed suspension was based on Employee and Labor Relations Manual (ELM) § 651.77.2 (Resp. Exh. 4; Tr. 24-26).,  On April 21, 2016, the Postal Service issued a Letter of Decision upholding that indefinite suspension, removing Mr. Thomas without pay, effective April 26, 2016 (Resp. Exh. 5; Tr. 41-42).  Although the Letter of Decision provided notice of appeal rights, Mr. Thomas did not challenge the suspension without pay (Resp. Exh. 5; Tr. 47, 56).
  4. On January 5, 2017, Mr. Thomas entered into a plea agreement, resolving the charges.  The resulting sentence did not include imprisonment.  (Pet. Exh. 4; Tr. 44-45).
  5. Mr. Thomas notified a representative of the National Association of Postal Supervisors (NAPS) about the plea agreement the next day.  Mr. Thomas did not notify the Postal Service.3 (Tr. 29, 37, 45, 54-55).
  6. The Postal Service reinstated Mr. Thomas, and he returned to work on February 8, 2017 (Tr. 29, 41-42).
  7. Despite the suspension, the Postal Service mistakenly continued to pay Mr. Thomas at various times from May 21, 2016, until February 7, 2017.  In all, the Postal Service paid Mr. Thomas $13,436.88, including deductions for health insurance premiums and Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) contributions, while he was suspended without pay.  (Resp. Exh. 6; Tr. 11-15, 18-21, 32).  Mr. Thomas was not aware that he was being paid during the suspension because he did not open his sealed pay stubs or check his account balance during this period (Tr. 31-32, 43-44, 55).
  8. On July 14, 2017, the Postal Service issued Mr. Thomas two Letters of Debt Determination, seeking $12,499.82 for salary payments made during the suspension in 2016, and $937.06 for salary payments made during the suspension in 2017 (Resp. Exhs. 1-3; Tr. 18-19).  On August 24, 2017, the Postal Service issued a Notice of Involuntary Administrative Salary Offsets for the $12,499.82 debt assessment (Resp. Exh. 9).  Mr. Thomas filed a timely Petition in response.  Although a Notice was not issued for the $937.06 debt assessment, the parties stipulated that I should decide both aspects of the case without the need for further process (Tr. 4-5).4

DECISION

If the Postal Service proves that it paid an employee’s salary mistakenly while the employee was in a non-pay status, it may recover the demonstrated amount of the resulting debt.  See Matthew J. Williams, Jr., AO 13-375, 2014 WL 12767823 (I.D. March 20, 2014).  Here, the Postal Service satisfied its burden by proving that it paid Mr. Thomas $13,436.88 in salary while he was suspended without pay (Findings 3, 7).  Since the Postal Service proved the debt, the burden shifts to Mr. Thomas to demonstrate an excuse to retain the overpayments.  See Skadsberg v. United States Postal Service, DCA 14-198, 14-200, 2014 WL 12767841 (September 16, 2014).  He offers several defenses.
Mr. Thomas argues that he should be excused from the debt because he was unaware of, and therefore not responsible for, the salary overpayments.  Although the record supports this contention (Finding 7), neither being blameless for nor not knowing about a salary overpayment excuses an employee from the responsibility to repay it.  See Stephen B. Dean, DCA 09-168, 2009 WL 10690555 (September 8, 2009).
Mr. Thomas also argues that the Postal Service improperly suspended him in violation of ELM § 651.77 by imposing a lengthy and open-ended suspension without identifying the circumstances under which he would be reinstated.  However, he did not challenge the suspension at the time it was issued (Finding 3).  This is the wrong forum for such a challenge, which is too late in any event.  Cf. Moss v. United States Postal Service, DCA 15-220, 2015 WL 13647644 (November 13, 2015) (Debt Collection Act decision will not review Department of Labor’s OWCP decision on which debt is based); Lewis T. Amis, DCA 12-163, 2013 WL 12303248 (March 20, 2013) (Debt Collection Act decision will not review decision of District Reasonable Accommodation Committee).
Mr. Thomas emphasizes that the Postal Service did not reinstate him until February 8, 2017, although his plea agreement, which avoided imprisonment (the prospect of which justified the suspension), was entered on January 5, 2017.  He argues that this delay was unreasonably long and should excuse a portion of the debt.  Even if an unreasonably long delay to reinstate a suspended employee may excuse a portion of a debt arising during that delay, Mr. Thomas did not prove when the Postal Service first became aware of the plea agreement.  All Mr. Thomas showed was that he sent the plea agreement to his NAPS representative, not to the Postal Service (Finding 5).  No evidence exists in the record showing when the NAPS representative notified the Postal Service or when the Postal Service otherwise became aware of the situation (see Tr. 29, 33, 37).  Based on this record, I conclude that the Postal Service acted reasonably in not reinstating Mr. Thomas until February 8, 2017.  Mr. Thomas also argues that the amount of the assessed debt is too high because health insurance premiums and TSP deductions were taken from the mistaken salary overpayments.  However, the evidence supports the Postal Service’s calculation of the overpayments (Finding 6), and Mr. Thomas received the benefits of both types of deductions.5
Finally, Mr. Thomas argues that any salary offset schedule greater than $100 per pay period would impose a severe financial hardship (Tr. 50-51).  As the Postal Service did not propose a salary offset schedule at all in the Notice of Involuntary Administrative Salary Offsets, I accept Mr. Thomas’ proposed offset schedule.  Furthermore, the parties agreed during the hearing to pursue Mr. Thomas’ request to pay off all or a portion of this debt by using his annual leave balance (Tr. 49, 52, 59-60).  I expect the parties to cooperate to allow the use of annual leave to satisfy the debt, on agreeable terms.

ORDER

The Petition is denied.  The Postal Service is permitted to collect the $13,436.88 debt by involuntary administrative salary offset.  However, the parties shall cooperate to allow payment of all or a portion of the debt using Mr. Thomas’ accrued annual leave. After an agreed amount of annual leave has been used, the remainder of the debt, if any, may be collected by salary offset at a rate of $100 per pay period.

Gary E. Shapiro
Administrative Judge

1 I presided over the November 8, 2017 hearing, using video technology, from the Judicial Officer courthouse in Arlington, Virginia while the parties participated from Kansas City, Missouri.

2 ELM § 651.77, Exceptions to Thirty-day Notice, provides:
When there is reasonable cause to believe an employee is guilty of a crime for which a sentence of imprisonment may be imposed, the advance notice before effecting the adverse action may be reduced to no less than 7 calendar days. At the expiration of the reduced notice period, the decision is issued at once. If the decision is to suspend the employee indefinitely, the individual remains on the rolls in a nonpay, nonduty status pending a final decision or until the suspension is otherwise terminated. . . .

3 The NAPS representative did not testify.

4 The August 24, 2017 Notice is extraordinary in its lack of information.  Among other defects, the basis for the Notice was unexplained, the date of the prior debt letter was left blank, as was a proposed salary offset schedule, and the Notice was unsigned.  Mr. Thomas does not claim prejudice from these defects.

5 The parties remain free to pursue adjustments to Mr. Thomas’ TSP using established procedures if they wish to do so.