This is kind of embarrassing.
Several months ago (August 1st), I requested a reduction in work hours and agreed to a corresponding pay cut. My direct supervisor supposedly handled all of the papework. I reduced my work hours, but apparently the official change was never actually processed.
The embarrassing part is that I didn't even notice. We're paid via direct deposit and can only access paystubs by logging in to a program on a work computer (which I never have/make time to do), so I never check my paystubs. My paycheck deposits went down by a few hundred dollars a few weeks later, so I figured the change had gone through, but apparently that was due to a change in my retirement contribution or something.
My new supervisor (old supervisor's boss - they removed a layer of management) made a comment about my schedule recently and I then remembered that there had been a couple of other situations in which higher-ups had implied that they were not aware of my current schedule. So, I logged into my employee profile at work and, sure enough, my salary was still showing up at the previous level. My former supervisor apparently dropped the ball and never submitted any of the paperwork. So, I immediately contacted my current supervisor to make her aware of the situation.
It has now been a week. I spoke with my boss yesterday and she said that HR is still trying to work out a fair solution. My pay has been decreased starting with this pay period, but they're trying to figure out what to do about the last four months. In the meantime, I have some time off today so I'm trying to do some of my own research to figure out what to expect.
I started my reduced hours on August 1st. The salary will be corrected as of December 10th, leaving 19 weeks of overpayment. My pay cut was $11,500/yr ($221/wk).... so they overpaid me by $4199, looking at my base salary.
I am paid on a base salary + commission model, though we don't always get commission bonuses. Bonuses are paid quarterly.
Decreasing my base means I would have earned a $257 bonus last quarter, though, so I guess if they do the math that way, I would owe them somewhere around $3942.
If I look at my 3rd quarter production statement and my QTD-statement, they've only overpaid me by $1874 (my 3rd quarter bonus balance was $-1069 and QTD this quarter is -$805) .... but that doesn't take into account days off, because days off aren't included in calculating our bonus. (Our bonus is 19% of income produced - "wages paid (excluding PTO)." So I guess technically that isn't accurate because then I was overpaid for my days off?) When I initially emailed her, I figured I'd owe them around $1-2k. Seeing that it could actually be $4k sucks a lot.
Just trying to figure out what to expect and what is reasonable, so that I won't be caught off guard when I get a phone call. Should I expect to pay back $4000, 2000, somewhere in between, or neither of the above? This is potentially going to be a full paycheck or two (paid every 2 wks), so I just want to know what to expect and know if it's legal for them to take the full amount. Everything suggests yes, but everything I'm reading talks about a single overpayment and so I didn't know about an ongoing situation like this.
Please don't beat me up too much for never checking my paystubs... I'm doing enough of that to myself already!