Again, I will say – There has been a lot going on around here.

My last post was only one of the many.

The Department of Social Services has moved to a new Fiscal Intermediary (FI) to pay our staff. This has been a disaster and OH… you will read about GT Independence at a later date.

In the midst of all of this, work has been over the top and I just received a notice of a Social Security review which happens to be scheduled while we are away and will have no access to cell service or internet service.

I have called twice to reschedule but as always, they haven’t called me back – it’s been over a week.

Anyway…. I just received a call from DC’s program.

The Department of Labor had paid a visit there and they discovered that they were required to be paying federal minimum wage instead of state minimum. So they have a check for DC.

I panicked because the last time they “made an error” with his payments a few years back, it cost me 700.00 to spend down within two days. It cost DC around that much because his pay was so high that his social security checks were “adjusted” for that amount of money – it also triggered a Social Security and Medicare audit, Fun!

DC works in a program for sub-minimum wage, so his wages fluctuate twice a year depending on his productivity. So it is not always apparent to me when something wasn’t adjusted.

** As I wrote here – he is in a program with in house jobs that were created for these adults. They are not working out in public taking jobs away from other folks who would be paid minimum wage or more***

Long story short, apparently they never adjusted his wage for minimum wage increases (even though he makes sub minimum, his wages still should be adjusted up for increases) for the prior THREE YEARS !!!

I received a letter on the 28th of May (yes I remember the date because it was two days before his SS check was scheduled to hit his account), but it was dated 2 full weeks earlier, that 600 some odd dollars of retro-active pay would hit his account with his regular pay on May 29th.

1. That retro would have thrown him over the amount he is able to have in his account.
2. I had to get the money out before his Social Security payment hit and spend it down on items for him and have receipts to prove it. If you have experience with Social Security, you know that you can’t just move money out of the account randomly because there is too much there; you have to have receipts.
3. I had to get itemized documentation from his program to show what the retro was for and that this was their mistake (even though it still cost us money to resolve it).
4. As I said, it had to be reported as part of his wages for May, which took a bite out of his monthly checks for awhile – so we technically lost $700.00 twice.
5. And because his Medicare annual report is always due in July, the May paychecks had to be included in that as well – which triggered an audit and me having to send a “bit” more paperwork to prove that this was not the norm wage-wise.
6. There was also an audit from Social Security.

So when they called today – I panicked.

It turns out that the check is only for .60 (Sixty Cents) but the kicker is that I have to go there and sign for it. Apparently they can not directly deposit it as with his regular pay checks.

I have to take time off from work to go there and sign for a .60 check due to their error.

I know it’s a little thing and I know that with everything else going on, I did not react well and I am probably complaining about nothing but if I don’t write it down I WILL lose my mind; but also, why is it that every time THEY make an error, I am the one who has to pay for it?

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