P.S. Docket No. AWG 21-184

FINAL DECISION

The Postal Service and the Treasury Department want to garnish Mr. Van Hoesen’s wages to collect a debt. The debt is based on an alleged salary advance Mr. Van Hoesen received when he worked for the Postal Service in 2006.¹ As discussed below, the Postal Service has failed to meet its burden of proof.

FINDINGS OF FACT

1. Mr. Van Hoesen worked for the Postal Service from November 2005 to July 2006 (Resp. Exh. 5).
2. Mr. Van Hoesen’s payroll journal for Pay Period 16 in 2006 shows an adjustment that was made to Pay Period 12. The adjustment indicates that Mr. Van Hoesen received a salary advance of $432 in Pay Period 12² . (Resp. Exh. 2 at 14; Tr. Vol. 1 at 32–33).
3. The Postal Service also maintains a general ledger for invoices for both active and former employees. That general ledger shows an invoice was created in August 2006 for the $432 salary advance at issue in this petition. (Resp. Exh. 7–8; Tr. Vol. 1 at 50–51).
4. Another part of the general ledger includes a “history” section for each invoice. In this case, the history shows that the Postal Service sent Mr. Van Hoesen three Dunning letters between November 2006 and January 2007 (Resp. Exh. 6; Tr. Vol. 1 at 54–55).
5. The record does not include any further evidence that either party acted on this issue until February 2021, when the Treasury Department issued Mr. Van Hoesen a Notice of Intent to Initiate Administrative Wage Garnishment Proceedings. Mr. Van Hoesen timely responded to the Notice by requesting a hearing. The matter was then referred to the Judicial Officer Department for further proceedings. A hearing was held over two days in February 2022.

DECISION

To recover a salary advance, as with any other salary overpayment, the Postal Service must prove that it made the salary payments at issue, the amount of those payments, and that the employee was not entitled to the payments. Abdullah v. United States Postal Service, DCA 15-19, 2015 WL 13647643 (May 11, 2015). The Postal Service is authorized to give an employee a salary advance³ in certain circumstances, including situations where the employee did not receive a salary check or received a check that was substantially less than the amount due. Handbook F-101, Field Accounting Procedures, § 23-3.1.1.  The F-101 also provides a detailed account of the procedures that both the Postal Service and the employee must take when a salary advance is necessary. For its part, the Postal Service is required to, among other things, prepare a form—either a PS Form 2240 or a PS Form 1608, depending on the type of employee. The form will list the amount of the salary advance and provide proof of receipt of the salary advance.⁴ F-101, § 23-3.2. 
Here, the Postal Service did not produce the above-referenced form that it was required to prepare when the salary advance was made. The Postal Service also did not produce any witnesses with first-hand information about the salary advance. Both items are critical pieces of evidence necessary to meet its burden of proof. Instead, the Postal Service relied exclusively on second-hand financial records to prove its case. That second-hand evidence, while ably presented by the Postal Service’s witnesses, is not sufficient to meet the Postal Service’s burden of proof. This is especially true in the face of the credible testimony from Mr. Van Hoesen. He readily acknowledged that he received an initial salary advance of $496.01 in 2005. He clearly remembers both that advance and the fact that he repaid that amount—a fact the Postal Service does not dispute. Mr. Van Hoesen, however, also credibly testified that he has no recollection of a second salary advance for $432. Given that credible testimony, and the Postal Service’s failure to produce the forms it was required to prepare, I find that the Postal Service has not proved by a preponderance of the evidence that it made the $432 salary advance it seeks to collect.

ORDER

The Petition is granted. The Postal Service and the Treasury Department may not collect the debt underlying this petition by administrative wage garnishment.