Troubleshooter: Some federal workers owe North Carolina overpayment of unemployment benefits
RALEIGH (WTVD) -- Some federal workers got unemployment benefits when they weren't supposed to. Now, the state wants its money back.
Just last year, more than $70 million was overpaid to people here in North Carolina who filed for unemployment but should not have received it. Some of those people are federal workers, who were part of the government shutdown last year.
Despite getting full pay when they returned to work, they collected unemployment, and now the state wants the money back.
The federal government shutdown went on for three weeks last October. There was no work and no pay for those federal workers. In North Carolina, 88 federal workers filed and got unemployment during those three weeks. However, when the shutdown ended, all federal workers received full back pay.
"When the federal government did start paying them, they received thousands of dollars at one time," said the Assistant Secretary of Employment Security in North Carolina, Dale Folwell.
That meant those 88 workers here in North Carolina owed back their unemployment money. Folwell says his office sent two different letters to those federal workers letting them know they owe the unemployment funds back.
"It doesn't matter whose money it is," said Folwell. "If someone gets money they weren't entitled to, it's our obligation to go after them."
While he says about 50 of those workers paid, there are still more than two dozen federal workers who haven't paid the money back.
"I feel it's important that public servants should be responding back to public agencies like ours especially when they have already received these monies from their employer to pay us back," said Folwell.
Folwell says his office is getting the pressure from state lawmakers to get this money.
"We have a statutory responsibility and we're being asked by oversight committees if we've collected this money or not, and that's why we are pursuing it," said Folwell.
Just for these federal workers here in North Carolina, we're talking about a total of $10,000 in overpayments, which is just a small fraction of the millions that is owed when it comes to all overpaid claims here in the state.
Folwell's office is hoping these federal workers will pay back the money they owe. If not, he says they can take their tax returns or garnish their wages.
