Senator James Sanders Jr. Ensures Former Staffer Receives Final Paycheck

On January 21, 2021, David Brand, Managing Editor of the Queens Daily Eagle contacted the office of Senator James Sanders Jr. stating that one of the office’s former employees called him alleging that he had not received a final paycheck. Brand used that information to publish a story the same day. This was the first time the Senator’s office was made aware that there was a problem and if contacted sooner could have facilitated a timely resolution.
 
Senate personnel is responsible for paying senate employees. It is not a task for members of the senate including Senator Sanders. If there was an issue, the former employee should have directed it senate personnel, but he did not, nor had he contacted the senator’s office since his resignation in November 2020.
 
On January 25, 2021, the former employee held a small protest outside the Senator’s Office, during which the Chief of Staff connected him to senate personnel who informed him that the check had been sent to the address on file and it was returned on January 27, 2021 marked “return to sender, not deliverable as addressed, unable to forward.” As per senate protocol all final checks are sent via postal mail and are not direct deposited into bank accounts.
 
Senator Sanders recommended that the check be sent to the senate’s Manhattan office where the former employee could have picked it up. On February 2, 2021, the Senator’s Chief of Staff put the former employee in touch with senate personnel and the senate’s lawyer. The former employee told them to mail the check to the same address they had on file, which is where he lived at the time when the senator had hired him. Again, the check was returned as undeliverable.
 
Another conversation between the former employee and senate personnel revealed that there had been a clerical error in the individual’s initial employment application with the senate, which was then corrected.
 
Senator Sanders’ Office has received documentation from UPS via senate personnel that the check was delivered to the former employee on February 4, 2021 at 9:53 a.m. and that he accepted and signed for it.