[Request for Waiver of Overpayment of Pay]

The Navy Accounting and Finance Center requested reconsideration of a Claims Group settlement which granted a Navy employee a request for waiver of a claim against overpayments made to him as a result of a premature within-grade increase. The basis for the settlement action was that the employee could reasonably have assumed that the increase was correct, since his previous career history showed that he had never experienced a 2-year waiting period for a within-grade increase. Therefore, he could not have been expected to have known at the time that he was being overpaid. Consequently, the Claims Group concluded that the collection of the indebtedness would be against equity and good conscience. The Navy's request for reconsideration was based on the fact that the employee was a supervisory auditor, and it was reasonable to expect an employee in his position to be aware of the waiting period between within-grade increases. GAO found that, although the employee was an auditor, his specialty was not personnel matters, and there was no indication that he had ever had any training or experience in personnel law. Therefore, there was no reason to assume that he was familiar with payment regulations or practices. Accordingly, since there was an administrative error and there was no indication of fault on the part of the employee, the collection of the overpayments was waived.