The Dallas Fire Department accidentally paid a former firefighter $127,000 after he quit. Now it wants that money back

The metropolis of Dallas is suing a erstwhile firefighter, saying successful a suit that Ivan Gonzales kept receiving paychecks for 20 months aft helium near the city’s occurrence section and adjacent aft moving retired of the state. In total, the metropolis alleges, the payments came to $127,441.

Gonzales resigned from Dallas Fire-Rescue successful June 2023 and submitted his termination paperwork to quality resources. The metropolis alleges the paperwork was not processed until past April. During that gap, Gonzales’ supervisor continued to o.k. biweekly paychecks for a roster of implicit 250 employees, assuming they had worked the required 40 hours a week, according to The Dallas Morning News (1).

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“There were galore different Ivans and Gonzales’ connected Captain (Corey) Womack’s roster, which prevented him from realizing Mr. Gonzales had not been removed from the roster,” the suit states.

City officials declined to archer the Morning News whether this was the lone lawsuit of erstwhile employees being paid successful error.

City officials allege Gonzales updated his banking accusation successful the city’s payroll strategy aft helium near and moved to Florida, allowing the payments to proceed being deposited into his account. In summation to the backmost salary, the metropolis is asking the tribunal to adhd involvement starting from the day the suit was filed.

“This wealth was not intended to beryllium a gift,” metropolis attorneys wrote successful the lawsuit. “[These] payments beryllium to the metropolis successful equity and bully conscience.”

Generally, employees who person wealth aft leaving a occupation are required to wage it back. But since this lawsuit appears to impact a clerical mistake by the occurrence department, the concern whitethorn not beryllium truthful chopped and dry.

In fact, the broader contented of repaying an leader aft leaving is not ever clear. Some workers who person signing bonuses, tuition reimbursement oregon assorted types of grooming indispensable repay those benefits if they permission wrong a acceptable period.

Those are known arsenic “stay oregon pay” agreements, meant to guarantee the employers get a just instrumentality connected their investment.

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In immoderate instances, “stay oregon pay” agreements are criticized arsenic tools to bounds worker mobility. Critics telephone them TRAPS, oregon Training Repayment Agreement Provisions, which tin necessitate workers to wage thousands of dollars if they leave.