24-year-old claim pits man against TWC

AUSTIN (KXAN) – A Central Texas man says he’s been targeted by the Texas Workforce Commission for a 24-year old debt he does not owe. 

And he may not be alone. 

KXAN has discovered that the state agency has sent thousands of notices to people it claims have either been overpaid benefits or received benefits they were not qualified to receive decades ago.

And the commission is going after every one of them. But as KXAN learned, the agency’s records are old and incomplete. In some cases, the agency relies on “summaries” to help them figure out what may have happened.

It’s a system that is not good enough, said David La Caille of Liberty Hill.

La Caille, a successful sales consultant, is learning firsthand that if the state says you owe it money, the debt may never go away.  It doesn’t matter even if you think that you don’t owe the state a dime.

“This has cost me a lot of time, money, aggravation, effort,”  La Caille said.

It started in the late 1980s

His dispute with the Workforce Commission can be traced back to late 1988 when he drew unemployment compensation.

Now, TWC claims LaCalle owes the state nearly $3,000 because he was not entitled to those benefits.

LaCaille told KXAN he spent 2 1/2 years as a window tinter for a company called TrimLine Design in the late ’80s. But he was laid off and applied for unemployment.

But about a year ago, the TWC served him notice that the agency now believes he had taken a job after leaving TrimLine and was fired for inappropriate conduct. That would make LaCaille ineligible for the unemployment checks he had drawn.

“The Texas Constitution does not allow state agencies to forgive debt,” said Lisa Givens, spokeswoman for the Texas Workforce Commission.

Other old claims are also being re-examined, she said.

The news stunned LaCaille because he said his old boss had to let him go because he couldn’t afford to pay him anymore. So, LaCaille says he went back to school and soon started working for the company he’s been with ever since.

“There is absolutely no employer between TrimLine Design

You can read the rest of this article at: http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/investigations/23-year-old-claim-pits-man-against-twc

Short URL: http://www.txwclp.org/?p=12798

Posted by rbutler on Jul 11 2012. Filed under Williamson County Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry