About 7,000 Carilion Clinic employees were not paid today because of a human error in transmitting paychecks through direct deposit.

Carilion is working to resolve the problem and have all the direct deposit checks deposited by the end of the day, but a spokesman said paper checks may have to be issued.

"In the event that we are not able to deposit all the electronic checks, we will use other means, such as issuing paper checks, to insure that all employees are paid today," said Carilion spokesman Eric Earnhart.

With about 11,400 employees, Carilion is Roanoke Valley's largest employer and the payroll glitch involves employees at Carilion's locations throughout Southwest Virginia. The error only affected those employees with direct deposit, Earnhart said.

Earnhart added that Carilion will reimburse employees for any bank fees incurred because of the error.

"We regret that this happened and apologize to our employees for the inconvenience it has caused," Earnhart said.

The error was discovered this morning when the payroll department found out that an employee had not transmitted a file to Wachovia, the bank that processes direct deposit for Carilion.

"The problem was not caused by a computer error, or any bank," Earnhart said, adding that Wachovia "has bent over backwards" to help fix the problem.