SCRANTON — Even though a judge struck down Scranton’s commuter tax last week, a few hundred people who work in Scranton but live elsewhere had the tax deducted from their paychecks anyway.
Now, they’ll need to be reimbursed.
Officials at the University of Scranton say faculty members who are commuters — possibly several hundred of them — had the commuter tax mistakenly deducted from their pay at the end of last week.
We have learned that the university and at least one state office in Scranton made the mistake. Now other commuters plan to keep a close eye on their pay stubs.
An employee with the Lackawanna County Court Administrator’s office told Newswatch 16 that he and at least three others in his office noticed their pay was .75 percent lower when they received their checks this past Friday.
The employees told Newswatch 16 that the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts, the state agency that signs their paychecks, apologized for the mistake and plans to correct it and reimburse the workers affected.
A few hundred faculty members at the University of Scranton also paid the tax that doesn’t exist. The Scranton tax on people who work there but live in other communities was struck down at the last minute by a judge. University officials say the payroll office didn’t have enough time to reverse the tax deduction.
The faculty who were taxed will be reimbursed in their next paycheck.
Since workers in the Lackawanna County Court Administrator’s office are paid by the state. We checked with state employees in various other state agencies in Scranton to see if they had been taxed, too. most of those state workers are paid this Friday and told us that now they’ll pay special attention to every line on their pay stub.