Thousands of Federal Paychecks Are Delayed Three Days

Several thousand federal employees are receiving their paychecks late because of a data entry error.

The Interior Business Center, one of the government’s payroll processors, said 40,000 employees in 23 federal agencies will not receive their latest pay check until Sept. 17, the official pay date. IBC should have deposited pay early on Sept. 13, but the wrong date was entered. Affected agencies include the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, NASA, National Labor Relations Board, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and Securities and Exchange Commission.

IBC is responsible for depositing pay for 240,000 federal employees in 42 agencies, and promised to resume normal processing for the next pay period. The center also said it is working on how to avoid similar errors in the future.

“Although most of IBC’s clients are not impacted by the error, IBC knows that this is a serious matter for those affected and sincerely regrets any inconveniences the error may have caused,” IBC announced in an update on its website.

IBC contacted banks to inform them of the problem and asked them to work with feds. Some financial institutions have agreed to recognize the Sept. 13 payments after IBC discovered the mistake and tried to fix it. Still some feds could get hit with overdraft fees.

“According to comptroller general decisions, the federal government may not compensate employees for overdraft or other financial institution fees, but IBC can provide written confirmation that the errors occurred outside of the employee's control and make requests on behalf of the employee that the financial institutions waive any resulting fees,” the IBC announcement stated.

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