HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — Some $3.6 million in Pandemic Unemployment Assistance that was earlier deemed “overpayment” has been forgiven, which means recipients are no longer required to return the money because the overpayments were not a result of fraud, said Guam Department of Labor Director David Dell’Isola.
That’s about 16% of the estimated $23 million in PUA overpayments to Guam residents.
There is no blanket waiver of the overpayments of joblessness aid, so each case had to be reviewed to determine whether it was a result of fraud, Dell’Isola said.
Those who received notices of overpayment still can apply for a waiver, and Dell’Isola said those applications need to be filed with GDOL as soon as possible.
“The waiver application cannot go on indefinitely,” he said, but added that no deadline has been set.
February guidance from the U.S. Department of Labor has made it easier to waive nonfraudulent overpayments, Dell’Isola said, but, for the most part, this latest guidance affirmed what the local department was already doing.
“Like I said before, we’ve been liberal in applying the waiver even before this latest guidance came out. When it came out, we basically shifted resources to reviewing the waiver applications and those overpayments that were earlier already decided on. This gives more people an opportunity to have their overpayments reviewed and waived, but, again, only if the overpayment was not a result of fraud,” he said.
It’s considered fraud if a person applied for and received PUA, if that person knew he or she was unemployed prior to the pandemic, Dell’Isola said, or the reason for unemployment was not related to the pandemic.
These include being fired from the job for tardiness, frequent absence without notice to the employer, or poor work performance.
But if the reason for overpayment was the recipient’s honest mistake or misunderstanding in filling out the PUA application form, then recovery of the overpayment can be considered, Dell’Isola said.
Moreover, as guidance evolved over the past two years, jurisdictions such as Guam paid benefits to individuals not entitled to receive them, so the individuals were not at fault. In this case, the overpayment recovery can be waived.
When the recovery of overpayment is waived, then GDOL collection activity stops.
But recovery efforts and payments continue as well, Dell’Isola said.
There are only a few batches of remaining PUA payments as a result of ongoing appeals hearings, among other things.
Since June 2020, more than $808 million in PUA and Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation have reached some 30,000 Guam residents who lost their jobs temporarily or permanently, and those whose work hours were cut as a direct result of the pandemic.
USDOL authorized $1.06 billion in PUA funding for Guam. The federal agency releases funds based only on the amount of claims and to cover administrative costs.
Dell’Isola said GDOL is looking at requesting more administrative funding since review, recovery and waiver of PUA overpayments, appeal hearings and other activities continue.
A Guam Department of Labor Pandemic Unemployment Assistance processing center is shown in March 2020.
