Fiasco as PGCPS system Accidentally Double-Pays Employees

Okay, let’s say you work for either a large school district, local government, company or government…

That you had been getting pay stubs and direct deposit; however, for one pay period somehow you got several checks instead of a pay stub, AND you got a direct deposit, too.

Hence, you were over paid several times.

That this what happened at Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS) system a few days ago. Bad news: You have to give the money back. For some; however, they appear to be keeping everything as others salivate.

Prince George’s County Public Schools accidentally double-paid all 18,000 employees who use direct deposit, a school district representative confirmed. Employees received the extra funds on Friday, according to an email.

“Many employees may or have observed multiple transactions on their banking accounts,” according to an email sent on behalf of Chief Financial Officer Michael Herbstman.

Herbstman urged employees not to spend the additional funds. Reversals of the payments will be made between Friday and Monday, depending on how the employees’ banks process the transactions.

Anyone who has already spent the extra money will owe it back to the school district by December 14th. Employees on social media responded differently. Their reports are reprinted below:

• One stated … “I had three transactions posted to my account yesterday, payroll deposit, payroll deposit, withdrawal in the amount of the payroll deposit.”
• Another stated ……”Send a message to the CEO so she can hear about the disappointing way her teachers feel after she put out her happy message about the County Schools. We must speak up to her and the board to ensure them that WE the Teachers are feed up. We should have a strike vote to set the climate for the up coming negotiations to mandate good faith talks.”
• Another read…….“They reversed mine immediately. But I’m wondering whether they’ll screw up next payday and keep my check. I just don’t trust them anymore. And I will walk the hell out of school very dramatically while Facebook living. 😂”
• Another teacher said……”They took both. So I’m annoyed at on the 95th level of passivity to the 55th power of annoyance”
• Another stated ……“I used to think that the folks at Sasscer were just incompetent. Now I believe that they screw up on purpose. When they screwed up my pay, I called them and they told me to call my union. My response was, “why would I call my union, they didn’t screw up, you did.” I’m convinced that they screw up to force the union to waste our staff time and resources on cleaning up their messes instead of organizing and responding to our members’ needs. It makes our members mad at us, and divided instead of unified and strong. Be angry, but be angry at the right people. There is only so much our staff can do when Sasscer is so F’d up.”
• Another stated…… “They reversed the second direct deposit. My co-worker had THREE deposits and they have not reversed even one as of right now. We will see Monday what happens.”
• Lastly…….”Corrupt at best. This was done on purpose I can bet on it. You won’t know until you review the previous consequences. Five years from now, this screw up might be something different on paper.”

It was not immediately clear why the error occurred. The allegations appear that it might be a strategy to pay off friends as part of culture of corruption which is currently in progress in the whole district. Others have speculated that there is a bigger scheme in progress to swindle the county system employees as part of wage, Theft schemes which are well known. The double pay has happened before in the past. The problem continues to grow.

 

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