Court Opinion

ID: 9398158
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-30 15:01:26.728342+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:31.321601
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-2280     Document: 25     Page: 1   Filed: 05/30/2023

          NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                   ______________________

                JOSE ROSARIO-FABREGAS,
                        Petitioner

                              v.

             DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY,
                      Respondent
                ______________________

                         2022-2280
                   ______________________

    Petition for review of the Merit Systems Protection
 Board in Nos. NY-0752-10-0127-X-2, NY-0752-10-0127-X-
 3.
                 ______________________

                   Decided: May 30, 2023
                   ______________________

       JOSE EVARISTO ROSARIO-FABREGAS, San Juan, PR, pro
 se.

     BRITTNEY M. WELCH, Commercial Litigation Branch,
 Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Wash-
 ington, DC, for respondent. Also represented by BRIAN M.
 BOYNTON, TARA K. HOGAN, PATRICIA M. MCCARTHY.
                   ______________________

 Before LOURIE, CLEVENGER, and TARANTO, Circuit Judges.
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 2                                ROSARIO-FABREGAS   v. ARMY

 CLEVENGER, Circuit Judge
     Mr. Jose Rosario-Fabregas, acting pro se, timely ap-
 peals a final decision of the Merit Systems Protection
 Board (“Board” or “MSPB”) dismissing his petitions for en-
 forcement of two compliance initial decisions issued by the
 Board’s administrative judge (“AJ”). See Rosario-Fabregas
 v. Dep’t of the Army, Nos. NY-0752-10-0127-X-2, NY-0752-
 10-0127-X-3, 2022 WL 3073707 (M.S.P.B. Aug. 1, 2022)
 (hereinafter Final Decision). We have jurisdiction under
 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(9). For the reasons set forth below, we
 vacate the Board’s final decision and remand for specific
 further proceedings.
                        BACKGROUND
      Mr. Rosario-Fabregas was employed as a Biologist
 (Project Manager), GS-12 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engi-
 neers (“Agency”) in the Regulatory Division, San Juan,
 Puerto Rico. The Agency removed Mr. Rosario-Fabregas
 from his position effective February 12, 2010. Final Deci-
 sion at *1. He successfully challenged his removal at the
 Board, obtaining an Order dated November 30, 2011 direct-
 ing the Agency to reinstate him to his former position
 within 20 days and to provide him within 60 days with the
 correct amount of back pay, interest on back pay, and other
 benefits under the Office of Personnel Management
 (“OPM”)’s regulations. Rosario-Fabregas v. Dep’t of the
 Army¸ No. NY-0752-10-0127-I-1, 2011 WL 12516590, at *3-
 4 (M.S.P.B. Nov. 30, 2011). The Board also ordered the
 Agency to provide the Defense Finance and Accounting
 Service (“DFAS”) with all information necessary to accom-
 plish the award of back pay, interest, and benefits. Satis-
 faction of the Board’s Order would require DFAS to provide
 Mr. Rosario-Fabregas with back pay for the pay periods be-
 tween his termination in early 2010 and his reinstatement
 in late 2011, and to coordinate with the Social Security Ad-
 ministration (“SSA”) to enable SSA to correctly allocate Mr.
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 ROSARIO-FABREGAS   v. ARMY                                3

 Rosario-Fabregas’ back pay to secure the correct benefits
 under the Social Security and Medicare programs.
             FIRST PETITION FOR ENFORCEMENT
      On January 30, 2012, Mr. Rosario-Fabregas filed a pe-
 tition with the Board to enforce its November 30, 2011 Or-
 der, alleging that the Agency had not fully complied
 because, inter alia, it had used certain incorrect authority
 codes on the OPM Standard Form 50 (“SF-50”) canceling
 his removal, and asking that the Agency be ordered to cor-
 rect the alleged error. C-1 Compliance File, Tab 1 at 2-3,
 Attach. 3. His petition was assigned to an AJ of the Board.
 On February 22, 2012, the Agency responded that it had
 issued the SF-50 canceling Mr. Rosario-Fabregas’ removal
 on December 2, 2011, and thereafter worked with DFAS to
 provide “the majority” of his owed back pay, interest, and
 benefits on January 26, 2012. The Agency response did not
 address the alleged error in the issued SF-50. C-1 Compli-
 ance File, Tab 6 at 1-2. On May 30, 2012, upon review of
 the Agency’s submissions, the AJ found the Agency in com-
 pliance and that, inter alia, “the adjusted gross back pay
 was $173,139.59 and with interest of $6,148.65 . . . totaled
 $179,288.24.” Rosario-Fabregas v. Army, No. NY-0752-10-
 0127-C-1, 2012 WL 2870054, slip op. at 3-4 (M.S.P.B. May
 30, 2012). The AJ thus denied the petition, and her initial
 decision became final on July 4, 2012.
            SECOND PETITION FOR ENFORCEMENT
     Mr. Rosario-Fabregas remained convinced that the
 Agency had not fully complied with the Board’s November
 30, 2011 Order, and thus filed a second enforcement peti-
 tion on February 19, 2013. The second petition, coupled
 with supplementary filings, noted that the Agency’s sub-
 missions in the first enforcement action contained multiple
 inconsistent values for the amount of back pay owed and
 actually paid: the amount stated by the AJ in the decision
 denying the first petition for enforcement ($179,288.24)
 and five other amounts ($168,515.12, $154,738.32,
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 4                                ROSARIO-FABREGAS   v. ARMY

 $158,219.12, $158,905.52, and $175,815.35). Mr. Rosario-
 Fabregas asked the Board to order clarification of these
 discrepancies and payment of any difference owed. C-2
 Compliance File, Tab 3, Attach. at 2. He also cited an April
 26, 2013 earnings statement that he had received from SSA
 to allege that the Agency had failed to allocate back pay to
 the correct years for Social Security purposes—thereby
 harming future Social Security benefits—and asked the
 Board to order the Agency to report the correct allocations
 to SSA. C-2 Compliance File, Tab 11 at 1-2, 5, 7. In addi-
 tion, the second enforcement action raised, once again, the
 Agency’s alleged SF-50 coding error. The Agency re-
 sponded that Mr. Rosario-Fabregas had received the cor-
 rect back pay and benefits, which were accurately reflected
 in the SSA earnings statement, and attached a May 10,
 2013 memorandum from DFAS employee Ms. Casey
 Prunier for support. Mr. Rosario-Fabregas replied that Ms.
 Prunier was wrong and that the annual allocation of his
 back pay to Medicare may also be incorrect. C-2 Compli-
 ance File, Tab 13 at 5-7. The AJ agreed, finding on Decem-
 ber 3, 2013, that the Agency was not in full compliance,
 granting the second enforcement petition in part, and or-
 dering the Agency to reconcile the discrepancies between
 its data and the SSA earnings report, make any necessary
 corrections, and explain them. Rosario-Fabregas v. Army,
 No. NY-0752-10-0127-C-2, 2013 WL 6705702, slip op. at 6-
 7 (M.S.P.B. Dec. 3, 2013); Final Decision at *1.
      The Agency responded with a declaration from Ms.
 Prunier dated January 22, 2014. Her declaration now
 agreed with Mr. Rosario-Fabregas’ challenge to the accu-
 racy of the April 26, 2013 SSA earnings statement and
 stated that she had submitted a request to SSA with sig-
 nificantly different Social Security and Medicare alloca-
 tions to correct Mr. Rosario-Fabregas’ record.          X-1
 Compliance Referral File, Tab 3 at 3, Attach. 1 at 1-2, At-
 tach. 1 (Ex. B). In the interim, on January 6, 2014, Mr.
 Rosario-Fabregas had filed a petition seeking full-Board
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 ROSARIO-FABREGAS   v. ARMY                                 5

 review of the AJ’s December 3, 2013 initial decision, attach-
 ing two June 29, 2013 letters from DFAS and one Septem-
 ber 5, 2013 letter from the Agency, which together stated
 that he owed at least $4833.27 in overpaid 2011 back pay.
 Mr. Rosario-Fabregas argued that this attempted claw-
 back called into question the Agency’s earlier guarantees
 that his back pay and benefits were correct. C-2 Petition
 for Review File, Tab 1 at 5-6; id., Attach. 1, 2. He also al-
 leged the incorrect coding on his SF-50 caused the alloca-
 tion problems. On January 31, 2014, the Agency responded
 that he had waived both arguments by not raising them in
 his petition, and, in any case, had not been harmed by any
 SF-50 coding errors, as he had been reinstated with back
 pay and benefits as required, and the SF-50 was no longer
 in his personnel file. On September 11, 2014, the full Board
 dismissed the petition for enforcement regarding the SSA-
 allocations issue, finding that the Agency had complied
 with the AJ’s December 3, 2013 initial decision, and advis-
 ing Mr. Rosario-Fabregas to raise any new compliance is-
 sues in a third petition for enforcement if he could show
 good cause for delay. Rosario-Fabregas v. Dep’t of Army,
 Nos. NY-0752-10-0127-C-2, NY-0752-10-0127-X-1, 2014
 WL 5410707, at *1, *2 n.3, *3-4 (M.S.P.B. Sept. 11, 2014).
 But the Board granted Mr. Rosario-Fabregas’ petition for
 review on other issues related to his life insurance and re-
 tirement plan, remanding those issues to the AJ, and, in so
 doing, also ordered the AJ to have the parties provide an
 update on the status of Ms. Prunier’s January 22, 2014 re-
 allocation request to SSA. Id. at *6; Final Decision at *1.
     On remand, the Agency filed another declaration from
 Ms. Prunier—this one dated October 9, 2014—reaffirming
 that her January 22, 2014 request to SSA was sufficient to
 correct Mr. Rosario-Fabregas’ allocations. 1 On December

     1
        A day earlier, on October 9, 2014, Mr. Rosario-Fa-
 bregas filed a third petition for enforcement (discussed
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 6                                ROSARIO-FABREGAS   v. ARMY

 24, 2014, the Agency, however, reported to the AJ that
 SSA, for unexplained reasons, had not timely received the
 adjusted Social Security and Medicare allocations Ms.
 Prunier sent on January 22, 2014. Instead, SSA received
 her reallocation request nearly a year later, on December
 16, 2014. SSA produced new Social Security and Medicare
 allocations on December 23, 2014 and December 30, 2014,
 which differed in their amounts from those in Ms. Prunier’s
 January 22, 2014 request. When filing these SSA reports,
 Mr. Rosario-Fabregas renewed his complaint that the
 Agency still was not in compliance with the Board’s No-
 vember 30, 2011 Order. B-1 Remand File, Tab 8 at 2-4,
 Attach.; B-1 Remand File, Tab 10, Attach. at 5. On Sep-
 tember 6, 2016, the AJ ordered the Agency to “(1) have
 DFAS contact SSA in order to determine whether SSA
 made the correct allocations covering the period between
 the appellant’s removal and his reinstatement and (2) pro-
 vide the Board with documentation as to DFAS’s action in
 this regard.” Rosario-Fabregas v. Army, No. NY-0752-10-
 0127-B-1, 2016 WL 4743987, slip op. at 6-7 (M.S.P.B. Sept.
 6, 2016); Final Decision at *2.
     The Agency then filed another declaration from Ms.
 Prunier—this one dated October 11, 2016—stating that
 Mr. Rosario-Fabregas’ “total gross back pay” was
 $174,568.34 and that she had submitted still more reallo-
 cations to SSA on October 5, 2016, this time applying an
 annual Social-Security wage cap before reallocating back
 pay received in 2012 to 2010 and 2011. X-2 Compliance

 infra), attaching an SSA earnings report showing Social
 Security and Medicare allocations that were still un-
 changed from the earlier-filed April 26, 2013 report that
 predated Ms. Prunier’s January 22, 2014 alleged correc-
 tions. See C-3 Compliance File, Tab 1 at 622 of 635.
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 ROSARIO-FABREGAS    v. ARMY                                    7

 Referral File, Tab 1, Ex. A (¶¶ 3, 10); id., Ex. A (Attach. 2). 2
 Mr. Rosario-Fabregas responded that the annual wage cap
 did not apply to his case under the controlling regulations,
 and Ms. Prunier’s reliance on it made for a request with
 unreasonable non-incremental Social Security allocations.
 See X-3 Compliance Referral File, Tab 4 at 3-4. He then
 filed a report from SSA dated November 18, 2016 showing
 allocations that differed not only from those persisting in
 each SSA report he had received since the one dated De-
 cember 30, 2014, but also from Ms. Prunier’s latest request.
 X-3 Compliance Referral File, Tab 5, Attach. 1. Citing Mr.
 Rosario-Fabregas’ concerns, on June 9, 2017, the Board’s
 acting clerk ordered the Agency to provide the Social Secu-
 rity and Medicare deductions made for each pay period, a
 narrative explanation of how they were determined, and a
 clear explanation that they were properly allocated to the
 year of the relevant pay period and not as a lump sum to
 the year of the back pay payment. X-2 Compliance Referral
 File, Tab 3 at 2.
     In response, the Agency filed an October 20, 2017 dec-
 laration from DFAS employee Mr. Erron Jackson stating
 that the “total back pay to be allocated”—or “total allocable
 back pay”—was $150,406.08, of which $148,862.48 had
 been paid in 2012 and $1543.60 had been paid in 2013. Mr.
 Jackson agreed with Mr. Rosario-Fabregas that the Social
 Security wage cap should not apply before reallocation of

     2
         Ms. Prunier also listed various payments and re-
 funds made to Mr. Rosario-Fabregas and deductions from
 his gross back pay. Among these, she identified that, on
 March 19, 2013, Mr. Rosario-Fabregas “was erroneously
 paid back pay for 11 pay periods” resulting in him being
 “paid a gross amount of $1,543.60 for January 16, 2010
 through June 5, 2010,” and that “[a]n indebtedness will be
 created for this erroneous money.” Id. (¶ 8); see also id.
 (Attach. 1 at 1).
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 8                                ROSARIO-FABREGAS   v. ARMY

 back pay in his case and, accordingly, DFAS had prepared
 and attempted to submit another reallocation request to
 SSA, which differed substantially from each of Ms.
 Prunier’s prior ones. See X-2 Compliance Referral File,
 Tab 12, Attach. (¶ 2). But, this time, SSA allegedly re-
 sponded to DFAS by insisting that DFAS wait until Mr.
 Rosario-Fabregas’ tax year wages appear on SSA’s records
 and then resubmit the newest reallocation request. Mr.
 Jackson further declared that DFAS was awaiting confir-
 mation from SSA that this condition had been met—which
 SSA advised could take until early 2019 (i.e., “up to a year
 after the end of a current tax year”)—to resubmit its real-
 location request. See id. (¶ 4). Mr. Rosario-Fabregas re-
 sponded by asking that the Agency be ordered to correct his
 SF-50 to aid in remedying his allocations and by attaching
 an SSA report dated August 31, 2018 showing the same al-
 legedly erroneous allocations that had been in place since
 at least the earlier-filed November 18, 2016 report, which
 predated Mr. Jackson’s declaration. X-2 Compliance Re-
 ferral File, Tab 20, Attach. 1 at 2.
             THIRD PETITION FOR ENFORCEMENT
      On October 9, 2014, taking the Board’s advice from the
 September 11, 2014 remand Order, Mr. Rosario-Fabregas
 filed a third petition for enforcement realleging that the
 Agency’s submissions in the first enforcement action re-
 ported several inconsistent values for the amount of back
 pay owed and actually paid—repeating the numbers he
 had cited in the second enforcement action—and again ask-
 ing the Board to order clarification of these discrepancies
 and payment of any difference owed. See C-3 Compliance
 File, Tab 1 at 30-31, 33 of 635. Likewise, the petition also
 re-alleged that the Agency’s SF-50 coding errors caused its
 compliance failures and asked the Board to order issuance
 of a corrected form. The Agency conceded that the issued
 SF-50 contained a coding error and provided a declaration
 stating that the error was harmless. The Agency also pro-
 vided a separate declaration by Ms. Prunier asserting that
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 ROSARIO-FABREGAS   v. ARMY                                 9

 DFAS relied on the Board’s November 30, 2011 Order to
 process Mr. Rosario-Fabregas’ back pay and benefits, not
 the incorrect coding on the SF-50. C-3 Compliance File,
 Tab 3, Exs. A (¶ 3), C (¶ 2). Mr. Rosario-Fabregas criticized
 this response for not clarifying the amount of his back pay
 and insisted that the Agency first resolve the back-pay is-
 sue before correcting his SSA allocations to ensure that the
 latter would be correct. C-3 Compliance File, Tab 4 at 15
 of 18; C-3 Compliance File, Tab 5 at 3. On September 8,
 2016, the AJ acknowledged Mr. Rosario-Fabregas’ claim
 that the Agency had variously stated his back pay as
 $168,515.12, $154,738.32, $158,219.12, $158,905.52,
 $179,288.24, and $175,815.35, and, accordingly, ordered
 the Agency to “(1) have DFAS determine the amount of the
 gross back pay and (2) submit a clear explanation of
 DFAS’s computations,” and provided Mr. Rosario-Fabregas
 with 20 days to respond thereafter. Rosario-Fabregas v.
 Army, No. NY-0752-10-0127-C-3, 2016 WL 4743988, slip
 op. at 6-7 (M.S.P.B. Sept. 8, 2016) (hereinafter C-3 Initial
 Decision); Final Decision at *2. But the AJ declined to or-
 der correction of the SF-50, finding that the coding error
 was not a “pivotal issue” for the Agency’s compliance. C-3
 Initial Decision, slip op. at 6.
     In response, on October 24, 2016, the Agency refiled
 Ms. Prunier’s October 11, 2016 declaration, which it had
 recently submitted in the second enforcement action and
 which indicated that Mr. Rosario-Fabregas’ “total gross
 back pay” was a different number—$174,568.34. X-3 Com-
 pliance Referral File, Tab 3, Ex. A. Mr. Rosario-Fabregas
 responded on November 21, 2016 that he had “serious con-
 cerns” about the Agency’s new back pay computations but
 without identifying any specific errors in the calculated
 2010 to 2012 back pay. See X-3 Compliance Referral File,
 Tab 5 at 2-4. The parties’ remaining substantive filings in
 the third enforcement action duplicated all but one of their
 subsequent filings in the second enforcement action, in-
 cluding Mr. Jackson’s October 20, 2017 declaration that
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 10                                 ROSARIO-FABREGAS   v. ARMY

 the “total back pay to be allocated” was $150,406.08. The
 Agency’s concurrent filings did not address the inconsist-
 encies between Mr. Jackson’s declaration and Ms.
 Prunier’s October 11, 2016 declaration.
                   THE BOARD’S DECISION
     On August 1, 2022, in a consolidated decision, the full
 Board found the Agency in compliance with the AJ’s Sep-
 tember 6, 2016 SSA-related order and the AJ’s September
 8, 2016 back-pay-related order and dismissed both compli-
 ance actions. Final Decision at *1.
      Regarding the back-pay issue, the Board found Ms.
 Prunier’s October 11, 2016 declaration “detail[ed] the
 amount of back pay paid to [Mr. Rosario-Fabregas]” by
 “set[ting] forth her calculations regarding gross and net
 back pay, including interest paid on the back pay amount.”
 Id. at *2. The Board noted that Mr. Rosario-Fabregas did
 not “present[] a specific objection to [Ms. Prunier’s] back
 pay or interest calculations,” and found “[a]ccordingly, . . .
 that the [A]gency properly calculated and paid the back
 pay and interest due.” Id. But the Board also found that
 Mr. Jackson’s October 20, 2017 declaration “reported that
 [Mr. Rosario-Fabregas’] total back pay was $150,406.08,”
 of which “$148,862.48 was paid to [him] in January 2012”
 and “[t]he remaining $1543.60 was paid in 2013.” Id. at *3.
 Second, the Board found that Mr. Rosario-Fabregas’ Octo-
 ber 26, 2017 filing “alleg[ed] that the [A]gency’s calcula-
 tions of back pay were incorrect” but “did not specify what
 he believed the correct back pay amounts to be.” Id. at *3.
 Finally, the Board found the Agency in compliance with the
 AJ’s September 8, 2016 order to ascertain and explain Mr.
 Rosario-Fabregas’ gross back pay because: (1) the Agency
 “indicated that it paid [him] back pay in the amount of
 $150,406.08”; (2) the Agency “provided an adequate expla-
 nation of how the back pay . . . amount[ was] determined”;
 and (3) “[Mr. Rosario-Fabregas] ha[d] not alleged any spe-
 cific error in these amounts.” Id. at *4. The Board’s
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 ROSARIO-FABREGAS   v. ARMY                                11

 decision made no attempt to explain how Ms. Prunier and
 Mr. Jackson could both be accurately reporting Mr. Ro-
 sario-Fabregas’ back pay. Instead, the Board faulted Mr.
 Rosario-Fabregas for failing to identify a correct back pay
 number, even though its original November 30, 2011 Order
 directed the Agency, not Mr. Rosario-Fabregas, to identify
 the correct back pay amount.
      Regarding the SSA-allocations issue, the Board found
 that Mr. Jackson’s declaration stated that DFAS “had con-
 firmed that it had provided all necessary documentation to
 SSA to enable it to properly allocate [Mr. Rosario-Fa-
 bregas’] wages,” “but that, under SSA’s standard procedure
 it takes up to a year after the end of a current year for re-
 ported wages to appear on an individual’s record.” Id. at
 *3. The Board also found that “the [A]gency ha[d] provided
 an adequate explanation of how the . . . benefits amounts
 were determined.” Id. at *4. Second, the Board found that,
 although various of Mr. Rosario-Fabregas’ subsequent fil-
 ings alleged SSA’s allocations were not correct, they did not
 identify which allocations he believed to be incorrect or any
 specific errors or inaccuracies. Id. As with the back-pay
 issue, the Board faulted Mr. Rosario-Fabregas for failing to
 know the correct Social Security and Medicare allocations.
 Finally, although not so expressly stated, these findings
 were presumably the Board’s basis for holding the Agency
 in compliance with the AJ’s September 6, 2016 order to con-
 tact SSA to ensure the allocations were correct. See id. at
 *3-4.
     The Board denied Mr. Rosario-Fabregas’ request for a
 corrected SF-50, finding that his April 9, 2019 filing “did
 not provide any support for [his] claim that [an] additional
 SF-50[ was] required to effectuate the Board’s [O]rder re-
 garding back pay and [Social Security] contributions.” Id.
 at *4.
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 12                                  ROSARIO-FABREGAS    v. ARMY

                          DISCUSSION
     “The Board’s decision must be sustained unless it is (1)
 arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise
 not in accordance with law; (2) obtained without proce-
 dures required by law, rule or regulation having been fol-
 lowed; or (3) unsupported by substantial evidence.” Conant
 v. Off. of Pers. Mgmt., 255 F.3d 1371, 1374 (Fed. Cir. 2001);
 5 U.S.C. § 7703(c). Substantial evidence is “such relevant
 evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to
 support a conclusion.” Consol. Edison Co. of New York v.
 Nat'l Lab. Rels. Bd., 305 U.S. 197, 229 (1938).
     From shortly after the Board’s reinstatement Order of
 November 30, 2011, and before this court, Mr. Rosario-Fa-
 bregas has argued that the Agency did not correctly com-
 pute his back pay and related benefits. As shown above, at
 many points along the way, the AJ and the Board agreed
 with him and remanded the case to the Agency for correc-
 tion or explanation of the underlying calculations.
 Throughout this lengthy process, Mr. Rosario-Fabregas
 identified, inter alia, three errors by the Agency.
     First, he argues that the Agency erred when issuing
 the SF-50 that canceled his removal by coding it to indicate
 that he was being reinstated by an appointing officer with-
 out back pay, rather than by order of the Board with back
 pay. Mr. Rosario-Fabregas alleges that, because of the in-
 correct coding, the SF-50 did not trigger proper restoration
 of his benefits and back pay as it otherwise would have.
 Instead, the Agency, DFAS, and SSA were allegedly only
 prompted to attempt to manually restore his back pay and
 benefits via a complicated and error-prone ad-hoc process
 only after he noticed the errors and sought enforcement.
 See Add. Pet. Inf. Br. at 5-7, 21, 25. Accordingly, Mr. Rosario-
 Fabregas argues that, given SSA earnings statements
 showing that this ad-hoc process has not properly restored
 his benefits, the Board erred in not ordering the Agency to
 issue a corrected SF-50. See Pet. Inf. Br., ¶¶ 2, 4, 6. The
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 ROSARIO-FABREGAS   v. ARMY                               13

 Agency admits the coding error but asserts that it had no
 impact on restoring Mr. Rosario-Fabregas’ back pay or ben-
 efits. Resp. Inf. Br. at 10-11. Throughout the lengthy en-
 forcement proceedings, and in his briefs to this court, Mr.
 Rosario-Fabregas has provided no evidence that a correctly
 coded SF-50 would have had any impact on the Agency’s
 attempt to satisfy the Board’s November 30, 2011 rein-
 statement Order. Accordingly, we agree with the Board
 that Mr. Rosario-Fabregas has not provided any support
 for his claim that an additional SF-50 is needed to effectu-
 ate compliance with the Board’s reinstatement Order, and
 we therefore hold that the Board did not err in denying his
 request to order one.
     But Mr. Rosario-Fabregas is correct that the Board
 erred regarding his other two issues, namely the Agency’s
 failure to correctly establish the amount of his gross back
 pay and calculate the related Social Security and Medicare
 allocations.
     Regarding the back-pay issue, the Board repeats the
 Agency’s own mistakes, finding compliance by arbitrarily
 relying on inconsistent back pay calculations and making
 no attempt to explain those inconsistencies. As noted
 above, in the third enforcement action, the Agency resub-
 mitted Ms. Prunier’s October 11, 2016 declaration to show
 compliance with the AJ’s September 8, 2016 order requir-
 ing the Agency to calculate and clearly explain the correct
 amount of gross back pay. This declaration stated, inter
 alia, that “total gross back pay” was $174,568.34 and that
 Mr. Rosario-Fabregas was paid $1543.60 in error in 2013,
 for which an equivalent indebtedness would be created on
 his account. The Board expressly relied on this declaration
 to resolve the back-pay issue, citing it to find that “the
 [A]gency properly calculated and paid the back pay and in-
 terest due.” Final Decision at *2. Separately, in the second
 enforcement action, the Agency submitted Mr. Jackson’s
 October 20, 2017 declaration to show compliance with the
 AJ’s September 6, 2016 order and the acting clerk’s June 9,
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 14                                   ROSARIO-FABREGAS     v. ARMY

 2017 follow-up order requiring the Agency to determine
 and explain the correct Social Security and Medicare allo-
 cations. This declaration stated that “total back pay to be
 allocated”—or “total allocable back pay”—was $150,406.08,
 and that this number properly included the $1543.60 paid
 to Mr. Rosario-Fabregas in 2013. The Board, despite al-
 ready relying on Ms. Prunier’s calculations, also expressly
 cited Mr. Jackson’s declaration as stating that “total back
 pay” was $150,406.08 and that the Agency had instead paid
 Mr. Rosario-Fabregas this amount. See id. at *3. In other
 words, the Board found that both $174,568.34 and
 $150,406.08 were the amount of back pay to be paid, and
 even, by implication, that Mr. Rosario-Fabregas both did
 and did not owe the Agency $1543.60. 3
      On appeal, Mr. Rosario-Fabregas continues to point
 out the inconsistent calculations of back pay made by the
 Agency and accepted by the Board, asking that we find that
 the Board erred in not ordering the Agency to correctly re-
 calculate his back pay. See Add. Pet. Inf. Br. at 10-11, 18,
 20-21, 25; Pet. Inf. Br., ¶ 6. The Agency argues that the
 Board relied on Ms. Prunier’s October 11, 2016 declaration
 for the computation of Mr. Rosario-Fabregas’ back pay, see
 Resp. Inf. Br. at 13, and cites Mr. Jackson’s declaration for
 the SSA-allocation issue but without any recognition that
 Mr. Jackson’s declaration includes a significantly different
 back pay calculation, id. at 7. The Agency’s contention that
 the Board relied on Ms. Prunier’s $174,568.34 back pay

      3
          Indeed, the AJ credited Mr. Rosario-Fabregas’ allegation
 that the Agency has stated at least six different back pay amounts.
 Including the two additional values cited thereafter by Ms. Prunier
 and Mr. Jackson and relied on by the Board, this suggests that the
 Agency has stated at least eight different back pay amounts—rang-
 ing from as low as $150,406.08 to as high as $179,288.24—over the
 course of this dispute without meaningfully explaining the differ-
 ences.
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 ROSARIO-FABREGAS   v. ARMY                                15

 number is undermined by the Boards’ finding that the
 Agency correctly paid Mr. Rosario-Fabregas $150,406.08 in
 back pay. Final Decision at *3-4. The Agency thus fails to
 address and defend the Board’s final decision that the
 Agency has fully complied with the November 30, 2011 re-
 instatement Order. Notably, the Agency does not support
 the Board’s view that Mr. Rosario-Fabregas is at fault for
 failure to identify the correct back pay number and related
 allocations of back pay to provide for Social Security and
 Medicare benefits. Mistakenly, the Agency argues that
 “Mr. Rosario-Fabregas does not explain why he believes
 the Army is noncompliant.” Resp. Inf. Br. at 15. For Mr.
 Rosario-Fabregas, compliance requires the Agency to pro-
 duce correct back pay numbers for the relevant years, with
 Social Security and Medicare allocations that correctly re-
 flect those numbers.
      Throughout the enforcement proceedings, Mr. Rosario-
 Fabregas has asked the Board to require the Agency to pro-
 duce correct back pay award numbers, and to work with
 DFAS and SSA to achieve correct allocations of awarded
 back pay to provide for Social Security and Medicare bene-
 fits. In the extended back-and-forth exchanges between
 the AJ, the Board, and the Agency, numerous possible
 back-pay numbers and numerous possible SSA allocations
 have been asserted by the Agency to be correct. In the end,
 the evidence before the Board pointed to the declarations
 of both Ms. Prunier and Mr. Jackson as being correct, and
 the Board accepted both declarations as accurate, with no
 recognition of or justification for the inconsistencies. No
 evidence has been adduced by the Agency or relied upon by
 the Board to justify the arbitrary conclusion that the
 Agency has complied with regard to the back-pay issue.
     Regarding the SSA-allocations issue, it is not clear on
 the record before this court that SSA’s allocation of Mr. Ro-
 sario-Fabregas’ back pay to Social Security and Medicare
 is correct. This is particularly so when the Agency and
 DFAS have repeatedly submitted sworn declarations that
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 16                                 ROSARIO-FABREGAS   v. ARMY

 their allocations are correct, only to cite new regulations or
 procedures—many of which were first raised by Mr. Ro-
 sario-Fabregas—and drastically change the allocations.
 This happened no fewer than five times in as many years.
 In any case, the parties do not appear to dispute that the
 related allocations depend at least in part on the amount
 of gross back pay, nor did the Board find otherwise. Thus,
 just as Mr. Rosario-Fabregas argued below, the Agency
 must resolve the outstanding back-pay issue before it can
 definitively resolve the SSA-allocations one. Accordingly,
 because the Board lacked substantial evidence to resolve
 the back-pay issue, it also lacked substantial evidence to
 find that the Agency had complied with the AJ’s September
 6, 2016 order to determine and show that SSA had correctly
 allocated Mr. Rosario-Fabregas’ back pay to Social Security
 and Medicare. 4

      4   To the extent the Board drew any conclusions by
 relying on its finding that Mr. Jackson “stated that DFAS
 had confirmed that it had provided all necessary documen-
 tation to SSA to enable it to properly allocate [Mr. Rosario-
 Fabregas’] wages,” those conclusions are not supported by
 substantial evidence. As Mr. Rosario-Fabregas argues on
 appeal, Mr. Jackson went on to say that DFAS was still
 awaiting confirmation from SSA that his 2017 tax year
 wages had appeared on SSA records—which could happen
 as late as early 2019—after which DFAS would need to “re-
 submit” its reallocation request to SSA. Mr. Rosario-Fa-
 bregas correctly notes that there is nothing in the record
 showing that DFAS has since received such confirmation
 and resubmitted its request, let alone that such resubmit-
 ted request has been successfully processed by SSA. As Mr.
 Rosario-Fabregas points out, his August 31, 2018 SSA
 earnings report—the most recent one of record in this
 case—does not reflect the reallocation request included
 with Mr. Jackson’s October 20, 2017 declaration. See Add.
 Pet. Inf. Br. at 15-16. Indeed, as noted above, it includes
 the same values for the 2010 to 2012 period as his Novem-
 ber 18, 2016 report, which predated Mr. Jackson’s declara-
 tion.
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 ROSARIO-FABREGAS   v. ARMY                                17

                        CONCLUSION
     The Agency was supposed to comply with the Board’s
 reinstatement Order in 60 days, not 11 years (and count-
 ing). Although we affirm the Board’s decision that Mr. Ro-
 sario-Fabregas has provided no evidence to merit ordering
 the Agency to issue a new or corrected SF-50, we vacate its
 decision that the Agency has complied with the AJ’s Sep-
 tember 6, 2016 and September 8, 2016 orders and remand
 to the Board for the limited purpose of, for the 2010 to 2012
 period: (a) determining the correct amounts for Mr. Ro-
 sario-Fabregas’ back pay; (b) determining the correct
 amounts for Mr. Rosario-Fabregas’ Social Security and
 Medicare allocations; and (c) correcting any errors in Mr.
 Rosario-Fabregas’ back pay, Social Security allocations, or
 Medicare allocations.
     Accordingly, the final decision of the Board is vacated,
 and the case is remanded to the Board for further proceed-
 ings as specified in this opinion.
                VACATED AND REMANDED
                              COSTS
 No costs.