withdrawing an extra two weeks pay would overdraw the accounts. Just hope the school district pays all the fees involved.

This is true for any account, including yours.
Someone told me this happened to them several years ago.
Some people don't sign up for auto-deposit because of this.

Do I need to double check on the two auto-deposit things I have to my checking account?

I'm not sure a bank would be completely forthcoming about this, they might phrase it deceptively.

for payments and move money into it for that reason. No one has authorization for our main account. The bank can touch it, but it's much harder.

You are, essentially, giving someone carte blanche to put money in and take it out when you do this. In my experience it's pretty much standard.

It's a good think we can trust the Gov't not to do anything under handed with our money.........

right?

RIGHT????

The theory being to correct errors.

For example, an employer many years ago accidentally deposited everyone's paycheck twice. They withdrew the extra paycheck (after providing lots of warning that it was coming, so people didn't move the money).

The protections against this being abused are various fraud laws and banking regulations. It's not much of a danger since it's very rare, but you should be aware it could happen

Does this mean the government has control over my checking account ??

In case the LBN hosts find this too hard to believe:

payments. You are not in control of your account.

Somebody just told me it happened to them several years ago.

like the federal gov't, direct deposit is required. Some private sector occupations require it as well. I think my state requires it too.

to have direct deposit. But I am saying in that case you should not set up any automatic bill payments because you could have your account drained and the automatic payments would give you overdraft charges at up to $35 a pop before you know it and you have no control over it.

which is why all payments from me come in the form of USPS money orders... including student loan payments. I lead a pretty simple existence so I can do that and not have any problems with anyone about. I figure they are glad they even get any $$. I pay bills when there's $$, if not, we all have to wait until I do. Nobody gets access to my acct. info such that they can extract anything. And I don't keep much in that acct anyway.

Don't have credit cards and I'm glad I don't have to use them, so far.

Been in the business for 30 years now. Work for a school district now.
The district probably has 1 person responsible for the entire payroll and she (most likely female) didn't have a good system of double-checking to make sure everything was in order before hitting "send" to the bank. Not a conspiracy, just a screw-up. Major. The district and the sending bank will make everyone whole (fees, etc.)
One time a few years ago I did everything right on my end and the guy at the bank who transmits the files to other banks was on vacation and nobody did his job. This could have happened also. The bank has since put many procedures in place so that never happens again, although in unusual circumstances (like sending payroll very early due to a holiday) I call there anyway. 99.9% of the time you can trust direct deposit! This was the .01%.

I'm not sure what you mean by "most likely female" but it kind of stand out there.

Like myself (Freddie is an oversized orange tabby). Please no offense intended.

If the payroll submission accidentally got classified/processed as as inbound as opposed to outbound, the error would be on the bank who manages the payroll account, not the school payroll department.

Why dual control is critical.

I wouldn't rule out the bank without an audit of their EPN/FED system.

Much as we like to think of these things as "automated", there's still humans involved. Job security