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STATEN ISLAND, NY – The city is demanding that emergency medical workers pay back the $ 3.5 million they accidentally overpaid, the Daily News reported.
Some workers saw their wages increase by a few hundred dollars, but a handful of employees received as much as $ 10,000 – all depending on the amount of overtime they worked between March and August, according to the report.
Only the 20 paramedics, paramedics and officers who volunteered for the Behavioral Health Emergency Response Division (B-HEARD), were supposed to receive cash bonuses, but a clerical error in the payroll department resulted in the payment of 3,590 employees, according to the report. .
The bonuses were an incentive for employees to join the program, according to the report. The error was discovered over the summer and immediately stopped.
The city gives workers the option of repaying the money in a one-time lump sum payment or in small installments, however, the president of the local union of uniformed EMS officers 3621 is opposed to the lump sum payment, according to the report.
Vincent Variale told the Daily News: “We are against the city withdrawing it in a single payment. Many of our members live paycheck to paycheck. If they give it to us in installments, they should take it in installments.
Variale said he told union members not to spend the money, which at the time was assumed the extra money was the result of the contractual deal they were waiting for.
“I told them to treat it as an interest free loan because at some point the city is going to take it back,” he told the Daily News.
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