I am an elementary school teacher. I live in California. I changed
jobs this year and am working for a new school district. I was sent a
certified letter last month from my old district saying they had
deposited into my account one month's salary on accident. Their human
resources department had not removed me from the payroll in time. They
want me to pay back the money and they want me to pay it in one lump
sum. I am perfectly happy to pay the money back, it is not mine, but
is there a law that says I have to repay  it in one lump sum? I have
done some research that leads me to believe I don't have to pay it all
back at once if it will cause me financial hardship to do so. If
someone can find the exact law that says I can pay it back in
payments, I would appreciate it. I need to send a  response letter to
the district in the next couple days. Thanks

Dear Sirs,

I fully understand from your letter of xxth Nov that you overpaid me.

Unfortunately this caused problems with our relocation budget.

I enclose a cheque [check] for $50 and would like pay it off in
monthly installments.
Can you send me a bank account so I can set up a monthly standing order.

Yrs Faithfully
   A Naive but willing fool :)

1) I know you screwed up
2) And this has caused problems
3) I show willing - very willing
4) Now you get off your butt and do something .. obscure

What you, or any rational individual person, would like would be for
the whole thing to get it lost in the system.

Unfortunately, you are so utterly honest that you photocopy cheques
sent out, and keep a nice little file on all the correspondence.

A naive but honest victim of their incompetence.

Someone asked, I think, Matisse, how he produced such minimilstic drawings
He replied, 'Simple, I draw the whole figure, and erase all that is redundant'

Same goes for letters.

I'm not sure I understand frde-ga's comment above. My reaction would
be to inform the authority concerned that unfortunately I had not
noticed the overpayment; that I had already spent much of it; and that
I could only afford to pay it back in instalments of $50 or $100 (or
whatever) per month. I would not have thought it would be worth their
while to take the matter any further. But if they did, you could
always " scrape together" the sum concerned, and pay it back. Sorry if
some people think this is not too ethical - but, hell, it was their
mistake, not yours!

Geof-ga

It is probably worth clarifying what I meant.

1) Keep the letter simple - the best thing is to write it, and then
repeatedly edit it until it has been stripped down to the absolute
minimum.

2) Assert that they are in the wrong, but politely.
3) Assert that they have caused problems - ie: inconvenience
4) Demonstrate that one is willing to help sorting out the mess
5) Offer a solution that will cause them a little hassle, for example
banking a cheque for $50 and supplying a bank acount number for a
standing order are both things that a payroll department is not used
to doing.

By sending an initial cheque one is tempting them into accepting the
solution that one has offered. By banking that cheque they are
effectively accepting the offer. One is surrepticiously building a
case that a 'contract' has been made.

By making the /reasonable/ solution slightly inconvenient, there is a
good chance that they will simply write the whole thing off. Which is,
of course what Beans73 would really like.

However, to cover ones back, it is important to build up a 'dossier'
of evidence, just in case they prove unreasonable.

If, as I think is unlikely, they come back with a returned cheque and
a demand for full and immediate payment, the next step is to say:

 'Ok, I shall have to borrow the money - you can lend it to me, here
is the first cheque, please send me a bank account number so I can set
up a standing order.'

Which effectively puts them in the same position as they were in with
the first letter.  One could keep this going for quite some time.

The objective is to make them either forget the whole thing, or accept
the deal on the terms offered.
Failing that, to build up a dossier showing that one has been
consistently reasonable, helpful and polite.

If things do start getting nasty, then one asks for 'arbitration' and
sends a copy of the 'dossier' with that letter. By that stage they
will look so unreasonable that their legal department will tell them
to write it off.
Note: 'arbitration' - no hint of lawyers.

If they are at all smart, they will pass the first letter 'up the
line' until it reaches someone who recognizes that, what appears to be
a helpful and rather naive letter, is really an evil and cunning
person building either a 'contract' or a case that they are acting
unreasonably.

If I got a letter like that, I would probably laugh and write off the
money, but just for fun I might write back with a payment schedule and
ask for a wad of post dated cheques.
I might even suggest that they should be sent by 'recorded delivery'.
- and deduct $10 to cover the additional postage cost.