Reprinted from The Connecticut Post © Copyright 2009
December 17, 2009

By Susan Silvers

TRUMBULL -- Imagine you were told your nearly $4,000 monthly town pension check was being slashed by almost $1,400. Now imagine you had been paid that extra amount for more than two years and you might now be asked to pay back that total amount, roughly $40,000.

That's the situation confronting an assortment of former town employees or their survivors as Trumbull pursues repayments of what it says were errors -- large and small -- in payments over many years.

Yet when it comes to recovering overpaid pension funds, the town can't simply send out a bill. It's a lot more complicated than that.

Are there laws that block the town from seeking funds after a certain period of time has elapsed? Is there language in the pension program regulations that apply to such situations? And have they changed over time, affecting different recipients in different ways?

These are among the questions that lawyers examining the situation will have to sort out as they decide how to recover the estimated $250,000 to $350,000 that an outside audit has determined was paid in error for one reason or another over perhaps as many as 19 years.

Since a verbal report from the town auditor received last week confirmed suspicions raised in November of overpayment, Town Attorney Robert J. Nicola said lawyers have barely had a chance to consider what could be layers of laws, regulations, and paperwork that may be relevant to the situation.

Although he acknowledged it may place hardship on the startled recipients, town Treasurer John Ponzio said the new Herbst administration was prepared to move forward with "all legal remedies."

"Obviously we would be sympathetic," he said. But, he added: "We have the taxpayers of the town we have to be responsible to,"

And Trumbull may, indeed, have legal grounds to seek return of money from recipients who received excess funds, even through no fault of their own, according to an employment expert at the Quinnipiac College School of Law.

"I should think the town should have some power if they're overpaid and it's not beyond the statute of limitations," said Emanuel Psarakis, Distinguished Practioner in Residence, Employment Law. "But," he added, "I can't tell you what that power would be."

Psarakis said that laws and regulations may directly authorize the town to take corrective steps. Even if such authority is not expressly spelled out, the laws may imply the town may take action, he said.

However, Psarakis said he'd never heard such a pension situation, though he didn't dismiss the possibility something like it may have occurred elsewhere.

In a more general vein, Psarakis said that computational errors under contracts are not unknown. Sometimes contracts are cancelled as a result, though that can touch off a messy legal dispute, he said.

Assuming Trumbull has the authority to seek the funds, Nicola said determining how to obtain reimbursement will also require research. Does the town require payment at once? Take it out of future payments gradually? Lawsuits?

"Today it costs almost $400 to start a lawsuit," he said. "Sometimes it has to be a common sense business decision."

He also said the town's ability to collect could also rest on whether any dead pension recipients have had their estates closed.

Yet even without collecting the back funds, Trumbull officials have fired a starting gun of a sort by sending out letters to those identified as overpaid that would total more than $50,000 monthly. Those individual overpayments range in amounts from $1,382.31 monthly to $7.85 monthly over varying periods.

According to Ponzio, the lower payments take effect with the payments due Jan. 1.

As of Wednesday, town officials said they had received no responses to the certified letters that went out last Thursday.

But those recipients reached by the Connecticut Post were not giving in easily.

For example, Anna Chmura, who has continued to receive payments based on her husband's account since 2003, when officials maintained his 10-year plan were to expire, said she would dig out paperwork and challenge the change.

And even for $7.85 monthly since 1985, Isabel Herb, wasn't yet surrendering. "I want to prove it to myself first," she said.

The recipient of the largest monthly reported overpayment, Mary Maher, curtly hung up the phone after saying, "We have no comment. I can have my lawyer contact you."

Nicola said those affected would be welcome to present any records that substantiate the higher payments. "We'll look at them," he pledged. But barring the discovery of such evidence, the lower payments go into effect.

Of course it's not just recipients who may have to pay up. Companies associated with the fund could also bear liability if they are responsible for the mistakes, depending on the language in their contracts, Nicola said. He said that was complicated because several companies had serviced the fund in just the last few years alone.

"There's no one source where you can go and say give us your records," he said.

Monthly reductions made by stopping or reducing payments to those overpaid in Trumbull pensions.: Mary Maher, Trumbull, $1,382.31 Anna Chmura, Trumbull, $1,254.25 Deborah Gaydos, Trumbull, $816.30 Florence Hempel, Milford, $579.81 Kathleen Santos, Trumbull, $381.83 Jane Allen, Shelton, $29.52 Patricia Murray, Trumbull, $8.40 Isabel Herb, Trumbull $7.85