Purpose

To inform agencies of raise eligibility and to provide agencies with the procedures for reporting certain salary increases.

Affected Employees

Annual and Hourly Blue and White Collar employees in the following Negotiating Units:

COLLECTIVE NU	BU's
IBT	SB, SE, SM, SP, ST, SU, SV, SW, SX, SZ
DC37	CC, CD, SF, SJ, T9, TG, TH, TJ, TK, TM, TP, TR, TU, TY, TX, U3, U6
SEIU	S6
IATSE	T3
NYSNA	TE

Background

Pursuant to the Memorandum of Agreement between the City University of New York and DC37, SEIU Local 300, IATSE Local 306, IBT Local 237 and the New York State Nurses Association, approved during the 6/27/2016 Board Meeting and summarized in the memorandum dated 8/4/2016 from Carmelo Batista, Jr., multiple retroactive pay raises from 2011 through 2017 have been authorized.

Effective Date(s)

The Retroactive General Salary Increases will be processed in Institution Pay Period 21C, paycheck dated January 19, 2017. The rates and effective dates for each collective Negotiating Unit are:

	DC37	SEIU	IATSE	IBT	NYSNA
GENERAL SALARY INCREASE	EFFECTIVE	EFFECTIVE	EFFECTIVE	EFFECTIVE	EFFECTIVE
1%	5/1/2011	2/1/2011	2/1/2011	3/18/2011	3/16/2012
1% compounded	5/1/2012	2/1/2012	2/1/2012	3/18/2012	3/16/2013
2.5% compounded	5/1/2013	2/1/2013	2/1/2013	3/18/2013	3/16/2014
2% compounded	5/1/2014	2/1/2014	2/1/2014	3/18/2014	3/16/2015
2% compounded	5/1/2015	2/1/2015	2/1/2015	3/18/2015	3/16/2016
1.5% compounded	5/1/2016	2/1/2016	2/1/2016	3/18/2016	3/16/2017

Eligibility Criteria

All full and part-time employees meeting the below eligibility criteria on the respective effective dates may be eligible for the General Salary Increases:

• Is in Department 70XX0 or 70XX2; and
• Is in a BU identified in the chart in Affected Employees and
• Has a Pay Basis Code of ANN or HRY; and
• Has a Salary Grade of 600; and
• Has a Status of Active, Paid Leave, or Leave without Pay.

Additional eligibility criteria is provided in the memorandum issued by Carmelo Batista, Jr. on 8/4/2016.

Reports Available Prior to Processing

Due to eligibility criteria set by the CUNY University Office of Labor Relations, certain employees in the affected bargaining units may not be eligible for each general salary increase percentage.  Therefore, on 11/23/2016, OSC provided CUNY a spreadsheet of all job data rows, beginning with the first row evaluated based on the effective dates above, for employees who meet the eligibility criteria on any job data row in the contract period as of 11/22/2016 close of business.  An instruction sheet for completing the spreadsheet was also provided.  After processing of Pay Period 20C is complete, OSC will provide CUNY a listing of all rows that have been inserted into employee Job Data records after 11/22/2016.

Agency Actions

Paying General Salary Increases- Inserting Rows to the Spreadsheet

CUNY must review each employee to determine eligibility for a raise. If the employee is eligible for one or more raises, rows must be inserted on the spreadsheet to apply the raise on the applicable raise effective dates only.

Note: Campus Peace Officers (job code 016144) and Campus Security Officers (job code 016142) may have an additional raise row dated 9/18/2016, per the updated salary charts for these titles.

For inserted rows, CUNY must populate the following fields:

• Employee ID
• Empl Record Number
• Effective Date
• Effective Sequence
• Comp Rate 
  • Comp Rate of the previous row prior to any raises being applied
• New Reason Code
  • SIC only
• New Comp Rate 
  • Final calculated Comp Rate after applying all eligible raises

If the employee is not eligible for a raise on the raise effective date, no row should be entered.

No other rows may be added to the spreadsheet.  If a row was added to Job Data after 11/22/2016 close of business and is not included on the spreadsheet, the agency must submit a Job Request through PayServ to update the row.

Updating Subsequent Rows on the Spreadsheet

Rows for potentially eligible employees on Job Data as of 11/22/2016 close of business have been included on the spreadsheet. These rows may need to be updated based on the retroactive raises.

If a pre-existing Job Data row needs to be updated, the agency must complete the following fields on the affected row in the spreadsheet:

• New Action Reason Code:
  • SIC if the effective date of the row equals the effective date of the raise
  • CSL if the effective date of the row does not equal a raise effective date and the employee has a Pay Basis Code of ANN
  • CRT if the effective date of the row does not equal a raise effective date and the employee has a Pay Basis Code of HRY
• New Comp Rate
  • Final calculated Comp Rate after applying all eligible raises

If the Comp Rate does not need to be changed, the agency must leave these two fields blank on the spreadsheet.

No other changes may be made on the spreadsheet. If it is discovered that any corrections besides those directly related to the salary increases are necessary, CUNY must request these corrections through PayServ. The Salary Increase spreadsheet is only to be used to process the salary increases on the applicable raise dates and update the salaries of affected employees’ job histories as necessary.

The completed spreadsheet must have been returned to OSC on or before 12/22/2016.

Updating Subsequent Job Data Rows Inserted after 11/22/2016

To update the compensation on any Job Data row entered after 11/22/2016, CUNY must submit the necessary salary changes through the Job Request panel in PayServ.

OSC Actions

OSC will upload the spreadsheet into PayServ once it has been received from CUNY.

If a row has no values in the “New Comp Rate” and “New Action Reason Code” field, no updates will be made on those rows but OSC will continue processing all other rows for that employee.

If any rows are rejected by the upload program, all rows for the Employee ID/Record Number will be rejected. After the spreadsheet is uploaded, a file will be created and sent to CUNY with the rejected rows and the reason for the rejection. Such reasons include, but are not limited to:

• Row was inserted on the spreadsheet that does not have a valid raise effective date
  • Note: Raise rows effective 9/18/2016 will be accepted for Campus Peace Officers (job code 016144) and Campus Security Officers (job code 016142) only
• Row was updated that has a higher sequence row (i.e. under row was updated)
• Row was updated that is prior to the first contract increase effective date
• Two or more identical rows were updated on one spreadsheet
• Once all rows for the employee have passed validation and have been updated via spreadsheet, no further updates will be allowed by spreadsheet load.
  • If a row already submitted to OSC on the spreadsheet has been validated but needs to be corrected, a Job Request must be submitted by CUNY in the payroll system.

Subsequent Job Data Rows Inserted after 11/22/2016

OSC will provide CUNY a listing of all rows that have been inserted into employee Job Data records after 11/22/2016. Any necessary salary changes for these rows must be submitted by CUNY through the payroll system. OSC will provide this listing to CUNY after processing of Pay Period 20C is complete.

Reports Available After Processing

OSC will provide CUNY with a file of all rows submitted on the spreadsheet that were rejected by the upload program, along with a reason for the rejection.

CUNY must review the rejections and resubmit necessary changes.

Automatic Retroactive Processing

OSC will automatically calculate retroactive adjustments for regular earnings and Time Entry earnings that are calculated by the system based on annual salary, such as Holiday Pay CUNY/ANN (HPJ) and OT at 1.5 CUNY 40 hr (OTE), resulting from payment of the Blue and White Collar Retroactive Salary Increases.

If an employee receives a payment and has worked in more than one agency within the same Employee Record Number since the effective date of the payment, all retroactive adjustments will be paid in the most current agency for that Employee Record Number.

Agency Actions - Retroactive Processing

Reporting Retroactive Adjustments

Time Entry earnings codes that are submitted with an amount, such as Adjustment (ADJ), Addl Job (AJB) or other override codes, will not be adjusted automatically. The agency must calculate and submit retroactive adjustments for all miscellaneous earnings that will not be adjusted automatically using Earnings Code AJR. Adjustments for nonresident aliens should be made using the Earnings Codes XAR, YAR, or ZAR.

AJR (XAR, YAR, or ZAR) may be paid in a single lump sum amount or broken down into raise periods (i.e. 5/1/YY – 4/30/YY).  Detailed General Comments or a detailed worksheet must be available to OSC upon request. AJR (XAR, YAR, or ZAR) must be entered on the Time Entry page as follows:

Earn Code:	AJR (Adjust Raise)
Earns Begin Date:	Enter first date to be adjusted
Earns End Date:	Enter last date to be adjusted
Amount:	Enter the total adjustment amount (may be negative if recovering an overpayment)
Comments:	Enter an explanation of the adjustment

For earnings that will be automatically adjusted by the system, such as RGS, RGH or OTE,agencies must adjust the system-calculated retroactive adjustment whenever:

• the earnings were previously reported in Time Entry as a single entry; and
• the dates reported overlap the effective date of an increase.

In these cases, the system will adjust all earnings based on the salary rate in effect on the Earnings End Date, and an AJR (or nonresident alien code equivalent) must be entered to adjust the earnings correctly.

Increases for employees who have had check reversals or exchanges, or were paid on typewritten payrolls, may not be processed correctly by the system. Therefore, the agencies should review the retroactive adjustment calculated by the system for these employees and submit the necessary adjustment in a subsequent pay period.

An AJR will also need to be done if earnings were previously reported using Earnings Code RGS, and a date range that exceeded the number of days reported was used. The system will calculate the adjustment of earnings based on the number of workdays within the range.

• For employees who had a change reported on the Job Data page, since the effective date of the payment and the action resulted in an overpayment of earnings, the automatic negative retroactive adjustment may not have been processed because the overpayment was either not recoverable or was recovered using an overpayment earnings code or an AC-230. In this case, the negative retroactive adjustment may be re-generated when the payment is processed. OSC will not process the automatic negative adjustment for these employees since in most cases these overpayments were either not recoverable or recovered using another method.

If an overpayment of earnings is identified after the 1/19/2017 paycheck is confirmed, the employee must be notified of the overpayment and the adjustment that will be reported in a subsequent pay period.

Deduction Information

All general deductions for employees whose Payroll Status is Terminated, Retired or Deceased will be automatically cancelled by OSC with the exception of the following:

Code	Description
249	PSC Dues Grads Assistants
274	PSC Dues
290	PSC Agency Shop Fee
406	Strike/Discip Fine
409	CUNY Disciplinary Fine
425	Repay State Loans/Debt
426	Higher Ed Repay State Loan
445	HC Flexible Spending
467	Adjunct Dues PSC
468	Adjunct A/S PSC
470	PSC A/S Grad Assistants
580	CUNY Medicare Deficiency Flat Rate
581	CUNY Social Security Deficiency Flat Rate
582	CUNY SS/Medicare Deficiency
603	TIAA Before Tax Arrears
604	TIAA After Tax Arrears
GARNSH	Garnishments

Tax Information

These monies are taxable income and are subject to all employment taxes and income taxes. The monies will be included in the employee’s taxable gross and will be reported on the employee’s Form W-2.

Payroll Register and Employee’s Paycheck/Advice

All retroactive adjustments will be displayed on the Payroll Register using the appropriate Earnings Code and the amount paid and will be displayed on the employee’s paycheck stub or direct deposit advice using the appropriate Earnings Description and the amount paid unless the number of earnings codes exceeds 13.  Agencies should utilize Locked Query #49 to identify a complete list of regular earnings and retroactive adjustments if there are more than 13 earnings codes.

Undeliverable Checks

If the agency has made an effort to deliver the check to the employee but the check has been returned and is undeliverable, the agency should forward the check to the NYS Department of Taxation and Finance, Division of Treasury, per instructions in Payroll Bulletin No. 908.

Checks issued to eligible employees who are now deceased should be returned with a completed Next of Kin Affidavit (Form AC 934-P) and a Report of Check Exchange (Form AC 1476-P).  If a Next of Kin Affidavit has been previously submitted for a deceased employee’s payroll check, OSC will accept a photocopy of this form along with a new Report of Check Exchange.

Questions

Questions regarding eligibility for Blue and White Collar retroactive increases may be directed to the University Manager of Payroll Systems and Operations at CUNY Central Office.

Questions regarding this bulletin may be directed to the Payroll Earnings mailbox.

Questions regarding Deductions may be directed to the Payroll Deduction mailbox.

Questions regarding Taxes may be directed to the Tax and Compliance mailbox.