BNUMBER:  B-261303
DATE:  October 23, 1995
TITLE:  Beverly J. Ladmirault

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Matter of:Beverly J. Ladmirault

File:     B-261303

Date:     October 23, 1995

DIGEST

Through administrative error, agency continued to pay employee the 
increased salary applicable to her former position after her 
reassignment to a position which did not warrant such an increase.  
The employee should have been on notice that the new position did not 
warrant the salary increase.  Her failure to make inquiry as to the 
correctness of her salary constitutes fault on her part.  Waiver of 
the overpayment is denied.

DECISION

Beverly J. Ladmirault, an employee of the Veterans Administration 
Medical Center, New Orleans, Louisiana, appeals our Settlement 
Certificate Z-2927648, dated March 30, 1995, denying her waiver of 
$1,463.82 salary overpayment.  We sustain the denial.

BACKGROUND

Ms. Ladmirault was a registered nurse at the Veterans Administration 
Medical Center from 1990 until March 18, 1994, when she resigned her 
position.  She had been employed as a critical care nurse in the 
Intensive Care Unit until September 6, 1992, when she was reassigned 
to a regular nursing assignment in a ward.  While in the status of 
critical care nurse, she was entitled to increased salary, but, due to 
an administrative error, the increase continued after her reassignment 
to the ward.  The period of overpayment was from September 6, 1992, to 
February 20, 1993.  The Veterans Administration (VA) notified Ms. 
Ladmirault of the error on April 21, 1993, at which time she requested 
waiver of the overpayment, stating that she had no prior knowledge 
that she had been overpaid.  

The Committee on Waivers and Compromises of the Veterans 
Administration contacted the Personnel Service at the Medical Center 
and verified that all nurses had received special training during 1991 
regarding the pay differential between critical care and regular 
nursing assignments.  The Personnel Service stated that the average 
nurse using a reasonable degree of care should have been aware of an 
error in pay after reassignment to a ward.  The Committee on Waivers 
and Compromises denied the waiver request because of fault in failing 
to notify VA immediately of the incorrect rate of pay.

Ms. Ladmirault appealed the denial of her waiver request to GAO.  Upon 
our affirmation of the agency's denial, she now appeals our settlement 
certificate.  She maintains there was no intent to defraud or 
misrepresent, and that she did not receive any special training.  She 
encloses two personnel actions pertaining to her position in the ward 
which show the higher salary and state the "employee has enhanced 
qualifications or assignment".  Upon appeal, Ms. Ladmirault asks if 
waiver cannot be granted, might the government share the burden of her 
debt by splitting the overpayment.

ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSION

In order for overpayments to be the proper subject of a waiver under 5 
U.S.C.  5584, there must be no fraud, misrepresentation, lack of good 
faith, or fault on the part of the employee or any other interested 
party.  Therefore, if it is determined that a reasonable person, under 
the circumstances involved, would have made inquiry as to the 
correctness of payment but the employee did not, then the employee is 
not free from fault, and the overpayment may not be waived.  See, 
Sheldon H. Avenius, Jr., B-226465, Mar. 23, 1988, and decisions cited.  
Even if, as Ms. Ladmirault claims in her appeal, she did not receive 
the training in 1991 that the Center's Personnel Service states all 
nurses received, it would be unusual for a nurse employed in the 
Center to be unaware of the relationship between position and pay.  
Her awareness might have come either through the existence of the 
training on this subject or otherwise.  In any event, we believe she 
can reasonably be held with the knowledge that a change in her level 
of duties might affect her level of pay.  We conclude that Ms. 
Ladmirault should have known that an error had been made or at least 
should have questioned the accuracy of her pay level upon her 
reassignment.  Her failure to make inquiry as to the correctness of 
her salary constitutes fault on her part.

Accordingly, the denial of Ms. Ladmirault's waiver request is 
sustained.  There is no legal basis for the government to share the 
burden of the overpayment to an employee as Ms. Ladmirault requested.

/s/Seymour Efros
for Robert P. Murphy
General Counsel