P.S. Docket No. AWG 23-482

FINAL DECISION

Mr. Hencock received two $635 salary advances in 2021. The Postal Service recouped one of the advances when it adjusted Mr. Hencock’s salary later in 2021. The other salary advance was not recouped, and the matter was referred to the Treasury Department for collection. In February 2023, The Treasury Department notified Mr. Hencock of its intention to collect the debt by wage garnishment. In response, Mr. Hencock challenged the debt, and the case was referred to the Judicial Officer Department in October 2023. In the interim, the Treasury Department collected the debt by other means, meaning that the issue now before me is whether the debt was valid, thereby allowing the Treasury Department to retain the money is has collected.  
My office convened a hearing in February 2024. Both parties called and examined witnesses, submitted documents, and presented argument. As explained below, the debt was valid, and the Treasury Department may therefore retain the money it has collected to satisfy the debt.

FINDINGS OF FACT

Mr. Hencock started working for the Postal Service in Plano, Texas, but around Christmas 2020, he began working temporarily, and later permanently, at The Colony, Texas (Tr. 23–24). In both Pay Period 1 and Pay Period 4 of 2021, Mr. Hencock was entitled to receive Covid leave (Exhs. 27 and 31).¹  
Each time, however, the Postal Service did not pay Mr. Hencock for those hours with his normal salary payment. Mr. Hencock therefore requested two $635 salary advances, but he did so out of order. His first request, for Pay Period 4, was submitted using a Form 1314-A (Exh. 31). The form noted it was for Pay Period 4 and that the salary advance was necessary because Mr. Hencock’s “MOU Leave 086-19” (representing Covid leave) had not been timely entered into the Postal Service’s time and attendance system (Tr. 64–65). The request was approved, and the Postal Service issued Mr. Hencock a money order the same day (Exh. 7).
The second request, for Pay Period 1, mistakenly stated that it was also for Pay Period 4 and also bore the date of March 5, 2021 (Exh. 27). Despite that date, the form was signed and submitted by Mr. Hencock on April 20, 2021. The form was then approved the next day by the Postal Service, and Mr. Hencock received another $635 money order (Exh. 8).

Payroll adjustments
In March 2021, the Postal Service retroactively adjusted Mr. Hencock’s pay for Pay Period 1. Through several adjustments in the number of hours worked, the Postal Service increased Mr. Hencock’s pay by a gross amount of $797.19, which after deductions resulted in a net payment of $678.80. No deductions were taken for either of the Covid-related salary advances. (Exh. 5 at 22).
In May 2021, the Postal Service retroactively adjusted Mr. Hencock’s pay for Pay Period 4. The Postal Service paid Mr. Hencock a gross amount of $895.82 for 47 hours of Code 86 Covid leave. The Postal Service took the normal deductions from his salary and, importantly, also deducted $635 based on the money order issued on March 5, 2021, leaving Mr. Hencock with a net payment of $122.42. (Exh. 5 at 13).

Procedural history
In July 2021, Mr. Hencock separated from the Postal Service (Exh. 1). On September 1, 2022, the Postal Service sent an invoice and a Notice of Debt Determination to Mr. Hencock for $635 for the salary advance, mistakenly referencing Pay Period 4 (Exh. 2).² When Mr. Hencock did not pay or respond to the invoice, the Postal Service forwarded the debt to the Treasury Department for collection. In February 2023, the Treasury Department issued a Notice of Intent to Initiate Administrative Wage Garnishment Proceedings, stating its intent to collect $825.50, which represented the original amount of the debt plus collection fees. (Exh. 28). In response, Mr. Hencock asked for a hearing to contest the debt (Exh. 29). The matter was then referred to the Judicial Officer Department for further proceedings, and in February 2024 a hearing was held.
While this wage garnishment proceeding was pending, the Treasury Department collected the debt through three payments in April, May, and September 2023 (Tr. 12–13).³  

DECISION

To begin, I address the two requests for a salary advance and the Postal Service’s assertion that the second request, for Pay Period 1, was fraudulent. In Pay Periods 1 and 4, Mr. Hencock was entitled to Covid leave, but he did not receive payment for those hours with his normal salary. Mr. Hencock therefore sought a cash advance for each pay period. Complicating this chronology, however, Mr. Hencock’s requests for the cash advances were in reverse order. He first submitted a Form 1314-A for Pay Period 4 on March 5, 2021. This request was approved, and Mr. Hencock received a $635 money order.
Later, on April 20, 2021, Mr. Hencock asked for a salary advance for Pay Period 1. In response, a postal official created a new 1314-A. But the postal official doing so appears to have cut and pasted the information from the earlier-filed Form 1314-A. This resulted in the form bearing a date of March 5, 2021, and referencing Pay Period 4. This mistake led the Postal Service initially to argue that the form was fraudulently created and submitted by Mr. Hencock. The record, however, does not support this assertion. The preponderance of the evidence proves that the form was created and approved by an authorized postal supervisor. As Mr. Hencock credibly testified, he was not authorized to access this form in the Postal Service’s computer system, supporting my conclusion that only the supervisor could have created and approved the form.
Having determined that Mr. Hencock was entitled to the salary advances, I must now decide whether there is a debt owed to the Postal Service. The Postal Service may give an employee a salary advance for several reasons, including when the employee received a check that was substantially less than the amount due. Handbook F-101, Field Accounting Procedures, § 23-3.1.1. To recover a debt based on a salary advance, the Postal Service must prove that It paid a salary advance, the amount of the advance, and that the employee eventually received their expected salary, thereby resulting in a double payment for the relevant hours. Abdullah v. United States Postal Service, DCA 15-19, 2015 WL 13647643 (May 11, 2015).
The Postal Service properly adjusted Mr. Hencock’s salary for Pay Period 4 when it adjusted his salary in May 2021. Mr. Hencock thus effectively repaid the salary advance when $635 was withheld from his salary. The Postal Service thus did not seek to collect a debt from Mr. Hencock for this pay period. Pay Period 1, however, requires a different result. For that pay period, Mr. Hencock received a salary advance, but when he received his regular salary, the Postal Service ignored the salary advance and did not withhold an amount equal to it. Mr. Hencock therefore received a double payment for the Covid hours in Pay Period 1.
An employee may not, _oweverr, benefit from a double payment for the same hours. Cf. Dragoman v. United States Postal Service, DCA 16-205, 16-206, 2018 WL 1606054 (March 8, 2018) (holding that an employee was liable for a debt when he had been paid by both the Postal Service and the Department of Labor for the same hours). Mr. Hencock is therefore indebted to the Postal Service for the $635 he received as a salary advance for Pay Period 1.

ORDER

The petition is denied. The Postal Service and the Treasury Department may retain the money they collected to satisfy the debt.