ATLANTA — Kacey Carelson was out of work for much of 2020. When her employer, Rocket Farm Restaurants, placed her on furlough, Carelson said she received unemployment for several months.
Now, the Georgia Department of Labor is asking Carelson and dozens of other employees and former employees of the restaurant group to pay back thousands of dollars in overpaid unemployment benefits they received in 2020. State officials claim the employer made a mistake filing unemployment claims. Carelson has been getting notices from GDOL, saying she owed nearly $28,000.
"That's half my year's salary," Carelson said. "I can't live if I pay that back. I’m a little taken aback by the whole situation.”
Kersha Cartwright with GDOL said Georgia processed more than three-million employer-filed claims for unemployment in 2020. It was required at the start of the pandemic for employers to file those claims on behalf of their employees.
"It was a much better way for us to get these employees paid quicker, more efficiently," Cartwright said.
However, one misspelling, misplaced digit in a social security number or wrongly-written wage could lead to unintentional fraud, triggering a potential overpayment of unemployment benefits.
“We’re in charge of managing state and federal funds," Cartwright said. "So if there were funds that went to the wrong person, we’re required to recoup those."
Cartwright could not say how much money GDOL requested from the Rocket Farm Restaurants employees or what specific mistake led to the overpayment of benefits. Cartwright said unintentional fraud does not happen often.
"We work with that employee, talking to them and figuring out what happened," Cartwright said. "We talk to the employer if there were some mistakes made on that side, and we work to find some kind of resolution, which is what we’re doing in this case.”
Cartwright said any impacted employee could file a waiver to possibly get off the hook of paying thousands of dollars back to GDOL.
Carelson, who has since gotten another job with another restaurant group, said she has filed several appeals and sent in her waiver to GDOL, but she has not received a response yet.
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"I feel like the Department of Labor is at fault," Carelson said. "Yes, this whole filing was new for people. Restaurants didn’t know exactly what to do. I’m not sure the company is handling this properly during the pandemic, after the pandemic. I feel like we kind of caught them with their pants around their ankles, and now they’re trying to send out memos to employees who still work for them. None of us who worked for them are getting those emails anymore.”
“It’s intimidating, it’s nerve-wracking. The amount of nights I’ve lost sleep, panicked about how I’m going to pay this back. What if they garnish wages like they say. Am I going to jail for fraud?”
Rocket Farm Restaurants, in a statement, committed to paying any penalties or interest as a result of the situation:
Rocket Farm Restaurants has received notices from the Georgia Department of Labor requesting wage records for certain employees for a period of time in 2020. We’ve also heard from numerous employees regarding unemployment overpayment notices they have received.
In addition to working with affected employees and communicating with multiple Georgia Department of Labor personnel, we have been actively investigating the underlying issues. We have confirmed with Georgia Department of Labor representatives that we will need to submit revised statements of earnings for some weeks and expect to do so in the very near future. We have also requested from the Department of Labor all unemployment claims submitted by Rocket Farm Restaurants. While we have not received those records yet, we are providing comprehensive wage information with the goal of promptly correcting any inaccurate claims submission.
This was an extraordinary process during an extraordinary time, and we remain committed to helping our employees by correcting any inaccurate unemployment submission. We are aware that corrections will be necessary for a period of time for some employees, and we have already committed to paying any resulting penalties and interest assessed by the Department of Labor that resulted from inaccurate wage reporting.