Help Please: VA Not Paying The Salary Offered

Specialties Government

Updated:   Published

Cheated By The VA: What can I do?

I received an offer letter from VA for Nurse III Step 5 Position. After I accepted the offer and started working at VA, I did not have an access to my paystubs for few months. After I got an access to check my pay stubs, I found that I was getting paid for the Nurse II Step 5 position, not Nurse III Step 5 Position. I contacted HR and they said there was a mistake on their side. The offer letter was supposed to be Nurse II Step 5 position. Union filed grievance on behalf of me. My grievance was denied saying NPSB did not approve the Nurse III Step 5 position. I quit my previous job for the Nurse III Step 5 Position. I have been cheated by the agency. Is there anything I can do? Any help or suggestion will be appreciated.

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Specializes in Adult Critical Care.

If you don't hit the initial 2 year probation period, your pay isn't set in stone.  You could always quit, take a travel contract in your local area, and apply to the VA again to be reevaluated.  

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Specializes in Geriatrics, Management, Administration, Leadership.

Just curious, on your offer letter besides the grade and step did it not also state what your annual salary would be? You stated you did not have access to your electronic paystubs for several months. Is the VA no longer sending out paper paystub biweekly? 

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By any chance do you have a MSN? I know thats a requirement criteria for Nurse III, when you received your final offer how much was the salary? I got offered also recently Nurse II step 6 had to decline it because it was a paycut for me and im planning to get my MSN so I can just re apply next year

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@2B a Nurse Offer letter stated salary too. They do not give me the paper paystubs. I do not think any government agency does that.

@gilversplace I have two masters : MS and MSN with 15 years of experience including 8 years of NP experience.

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Wow thats really crazy. Im sorry for your experience. Im surprised that they even denied it after your grievance. 

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Hello fellow VA employee,

Hopefully you signed up for AFGE union membership. Speak with HR first. I wouldn't advise signing anything without a union rep present.

If you don't get an appropriate response or resolution from HR then, print out your offer letter and then speak with your union representative.

Any salary that was stated in a firm offer letter is binding. If it was a tentative offer letter, then it isn't quite binding. The firm offer letter is akin to a contract and they must keep pay the salary stated.

 

As far as your pay stubs those should have been available via the MyPay website. If you don't have access, you need to ensure you get access to that site and log in once per pay period and reset your password every 150 days. The website will prompt you for that automatically.

The information stated above by user jfratian stating "If you don't hit the initial 2-year probation period, your pay isn't set in stone." is incorrect.

It is also incorrect when he states that "You could always quit, take a travel contract in your local area, and apply to the VA again to be reevaluated." That is partially correct. You would have to quit for long enough for it to be considered a break in service to have a new salary board. Otherwise, you will be given the same salary again.

It sounds like a clerical error to me. A simple talk with HR and your union rep should be able to fix this.  

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@DeRob210 Thank you for all the tips. I talked to HR and could not resolve it. I filed for the grievance with the support of Union. But Union could not do anything either. Now I am trying to resolve it through my annual performance evaluation. Hopefully it works out.

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