Judge sides with employee in Colorado Department of Corrections overpayment case

After months of fighting, a judge ruled in favor of a Colorado Department of Corrections employee who was told he needed to return months of alleged overpay. It comes after the department blamed a payroll mistake.

That order comes months after Lawrence Cutts and other CDOC employees shared their stories anonymously with CBS News Colorado.

"A lot of people are still going through their hard times because of what was going on. What is still going on," Cutts said via Zoom.

He and several others received notices last fall without warning saying they must repay thousands of dollars in what the DOC alleged was years of overpayment.

"We structure our lives around our paycheck and pay that we had been receiving for a year and a half," one of those employees told reporter CBS News Colorado Karen Morfitt in March.

The officers applied for and received promotions they claimed that they were told came with a standard 10% raise.

Internal emails obtained by CBS News Colorado showed the department acknowledged it was their mistake but argued a technician mistakenly approved the amount and it's not what was intended.

While they initially agreed to forgive the alleged overpayment, representatives told the employees that state fiscal rules didn't allow for that and that the agency must recover that money.

We spoke with Cutts again in May after the CDOC began taking money out of his paycheck.

"For the last month, I have gone to work and at the end of April when I was supposed to get paid," Cutts said. "I got my pay stub, and it literally said I had $55."

Cutts appealed to the state personnel board in June.

"I wasn't going to have to pay the overpayment back. They were going to give me back money that they have taken from me," he said about the case.

The judge's decision reversed the DOC's action and found that the position Cutts took was a promotion -- not a transfer -- and that the correct pay raise should be 10%, based on CDOC policy.

Cutts says hearing that was validating; "that the fight was actually worth it."

The fight is far from over though, he says.

His attorney says the CDOC asked the judge to reconsider her decision and he believes they will likely appeal.

Until that decision is made, Cutts will continue on his new path as a police officer.

"I have now left. I've started a new career. It's exciting. I've been loving it since I've been there," Cutts said with a smile.

CBS News Colorado reached out to CDOC for comment. A spokesperson responded by saying  "we respectfully decline an interview."

Two other employees who also received the same repayment demand are set for similar hearings in the coming weeks.