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Claim for Retroactive Compensation

B-198085 Nov 05, 1980
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Highlights

An advanced decision was requested on the claim of a Forest Service employee for a retroactive promotion and backpay. The award of a retroactive promotion and backpay was granted by the Forest Service as a remedy for the failure of the agency to timely process promotions to which the employee had been found entitled while he was on military furlough. The agency found that the employee had been underpaid since he returned from duty on March 6, 1972. The payroll action request was forwarded to the National Finance Center of the Department of Agriculture on September 13, 1979, and the Center did not forward the request to GAO until March 7, 1980. The Finance Center forwarded the payroll action request to GAO, because it was concerned that all or part of the claim might not be payable as requests received at GAO will be barred unless received within 6 years after the date that such claims first accrue. They further asked on what date the claim first accrued. GAO has consistently held that the filing of a claim with an agency does not toll the running of the barring act, even though the delay at the agency level was the fault of the agency not the employee. The 6-year bar must be applied from the time the claim was received at GAO, March 12, 1980, not the date it was filed with the Forest Service. The Forest Service determined that the employee was underpaid since March 6, 1972. GAO may not consider any element of the claim which accrued before March 12, 1974. Accordingly, the employee was entitled only to backpay beginning March 12, 1974.

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