Petitioners seek review of an Employment Appeals Board order holding that they are subject to recoupment of their unemployment benefits. We reverse.
Petitioners, nine parole and probation officers employed by the Corrections Division (Division), were laid off for a two-week period. They applied for unemployment benefits, disclosing to the Employment Division their layoff status and that their union had filed a grievance over the layoffs. Each petitioner received $175 in unemployment benefits for one week. An arbitrator determined that the layoff violated the collective bargaining agreement, and the Division was ordered to reimburse them for wages lost during the layoff. The Division never requested the arbitrator to consider petitioners’ unemployment benefits in determining the back pay award. The Employment Division issued an administrative decision that, because they had received the back pay award, they had each been paid an overpayment of $175 and that they were liable to repay those amounts. A referee and EAB agreed. This appeal followed.
ORS 657.315(l)(b) provides:
“(1) If it is determined by the assistant director that an individual has been paid benefits to which he was not entitled because:
* * * *
“(b) An initial decision to pay benefits is subsequently reversed by a decision finding the individual was not eligible for such benefits, and the decision establishing the erroneous payment of benefits has become final;
he shall be liable to have a like amount deducted from any benefits otherwise payable to him pursuant to this chapter during the benefit year within which the unauthorized or improper amount was paid. If the amount paid in error is not repaid or recovered within the individual’s benefit year as specified above, the amount, or any balance thereof, may be deducted from benefits otherwise payable to the individual for any week or weeks within 52 weeks following the week in which the decision establishing the erroneous payment became final.”
*713The Employment Division contends that ORS 657.315(l)(b) read in conjunction with former ORS 657.290(b)1 authorizes recoupment in this case. Petitioners argue that ORS 657.315(1)(b) does not provide the Employment Division authority to recoup unemployment benefits properly paid to laid-off workers in this proceeding. The disposition of this case, therefore, turns on our interpretation of that provision.
For petitioners to receive unemployment benefits and a back pay award for the same period contradicts common sense and does not further any policy underlying the unemployment compensation scheme. Nonetheless, we are bound by the statute, and the Employment Division’s argument that ORS 657.315(l)(b) authorizes recoupment in this manner is not persuasive. By its terms the statute provides the Employment Division with a specific procedure to adjust benefits erroneously paid by deducting the amounts “from any benefits otherwise payable * * * during the benefit year * * * [or] within 52 weeks following the week in which the decision establishing the erroneous payment became final.” The only other way the Employment Division can recoup erroneously paid benefits from an individual directly is by a civil action authorized by ORS 657.315(2).
We agree with the Employment Division that former ORS 657.290(1) allows it to reconsider prior decisions to pay benefits when facts not previously known at the time of the initial decision become available. We also agree that ORS 657.315(3)2 indicates a legislative intent to make individual *714recipients of unemployment benefits subject to recoupment of those benefits when they receive back pay awards. However, ORS 657.315(3) not only indicates the legislature’s intent that benefits be recovered if a back pay award compensates the recipient for the same period, it also provides the specific procedure by which benefits may be recovered from a public employer when they have been paid to public employes who later receive a back pay award.
ORS 657.315(l)(b) does not provide the Employment Division the authority to recoup erroneously paid benefits from petitioners in an administrative action. It provides a procedure to recover by deducting amounts from benefits otherwise payable in the future to the recipient. However, neither it nor ORS 657.315(3) provides for recoupment by the process the Employment Division seeks to use in this case.
Reversed.