DOUGH BLOW!
City to EMTs: Return cash we paid in error
A clerical snafu by the city’s payroll department led to thousands of emergency medical technicians, paramedics and Emergency Medical Service officers getting paid an extra $3.5 million — and now the city wants the money back, the Daily News has learned.
After five months of overpaying the already poorly paid first responders, the city announced its mistake and is giving FDNY EMS employees a choice: they can return the unexpected windfall in one lump sum or in installments.
“We’re against the city taking it out in one lump sum,” Vincent Variale, the president of the Uniformed EMS Officers Union Local 3621, told The News. “A lot of our members are living paycheck to paycheck. If they gave it to us in installments, they should take it in installments.”
The overpayments varied by how much overtime EMS workers made between March and August. While some EMTs and paramedics had a few hundred dollars added to their paychecks, a handful received an additional $10,000, city officials with knowledge of the screwup said.
A new city program aimed to keep cops from responding to 911 mental health calls was responsible for the unexpected bump in pay, officials said.
The bonuses were supposed to go just to the 20 EMTs, paramedics and officers who volunteered for the Behavioral Health Emergency Assistance Response Division, or B-HEARD, which pairs FDNY EMS first responders with NYC Health + Hospitals social workers to answer mental health emergency calls.
The 6% pay differential was an incentive for medics to join the pilot program, officials said. But when the city’s Office of Payroll Administration went to add the additional line in their paychecks, it somehow got added to every EMS member’s pay stub — all 3,590 of them, sources said.
The discrepancy was discovered over the summer and the spigot was switched off by the end of August, FDNY officials said.
The screw-up occurred as unions for EMS employees — who have been historically been underpaid compared to FDNY firefighters and other first responders — were hashing out a new contract that included both future and retroactive pay raises. The new contract was ratified in
August.
Variale said a few of his members noticed the pay raises in early summer, and thought the contract was a done deal and they received their back pay. The paychecks, Variale said, didn’t shed any light on where the extra money was coming from.
“They’re very confusing,” he explained. “You need an accounting degree to make it out.”
Fearing a payroll issue, Variale recommended his members not spend the extra cash.
“I told them to consider it an interest-free loan because at some point the city is going to take it back,” said Variale, who added that if the city doesn’t put together an installment plan for his members, it could negate the retroactive pay they’re expecting.
“If you want to piss off a whole bunch of people that’s the way you do it,” he said.
Oren Barzilay, the president of EMS Local 2507, said his members have already been complaining about a sudden drop in pay — with some receiving a 10% deduction — although the city never told them why.
“It’s not honorable to take money from our men and women without explanation,” Barzilay said.
“Our people already work at poverty wages.
“Someone needs to be held accountable for this error and poor communication with our members and or union.”
The FDNY referred all calls on the overpayment to the Office of Payroll Administration.
“The discrepancy has been corrected, and the city will work with the union on recoupment per the citywide collective bargaining agreement,” City Hall spokesman Mitch Schwartz said.