That's correct. See HERE under Subcaption "Can employees deduct the salary reduction contributions they make to the SIMPLE IRA plan on their Form 1040"?
The only way you can get those tax benefits is if they come off directly from your salary on a "pretax basis. and as such you won't report it as income. Once your employer deducted the amount on an after tax basis to your account, you "CANNOT" use this amount as a IRA deduction off your tax return.
However, you may be able to retain the tax benefits if you use one of these methods, see HERE to correct a failure.
This would be something you would have to take up with your employer though.
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