Purpose: 

The purpose of this bulletin is to provide instructions to agencies for processing the CUNY 2021-2024 Retroactive Blue and White Collar general salary increases.

Affected Employees:

Employees in one of the below bargaining units who meet the eligibility criteria are impacted:

Background:

Pursuant to the Collective Bargaining Agreements authorized by Carmelo Batista, Jr in the 05/30/2024 Memorandum of Agreement between the City University of New York and DC37 (2021-2027), SEIU Local 300 (2021-2026), IATSE Local 306 (2021-2026), and the New York State Nurses Association (2022-2027), multiple retroactive pay raises from 2021 through 2024 have been authorized.

Effective Dates:

The Retroactive General Salary Increases will be processed in Institution Pay Period 21C, paycheck dated 01/23/2025. The rates and effective dates for each collective Negotiating Unit are:

Eligibility Criteria:

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

• Are in Department 70XX0 or 70XX2; and
• Are in a BU identified in the chart in the Affected Employees section and
• Have a Comp Rate Code of ANN or HRY*; and
• Have a Salary Grade of 600; and
• Have a Status of Active, Paid Leave, or Leave without Pay.

*NOTE: Employees with a Comp Rate Code of HRY in the titles of College Assistant, Disability Accommodations Specialist, Sign Language Interpreter, or CUNY Art Model have additional lookback hour criteria as outlined in the 05/30/2024 memorandum issued by Carmelo Batista, Jr.

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, for employees potentially eligible for one or more General Salary increase, OSC provided CUNY with a spreadsheet containing all Job Data rows beginning with the earliest possible row to be evaluated based on the Effective Dates above.

Agency Actions 

CUNY will provide OSC with a spreadsheet containing all rows that should be inserted into Job Data for the 2021-2024 Blue and White Collar General Salary Increases. The information below includes all data that must be provided to OSC in order to process these increases. 

NOTE: If a row was provided to CUNY on the original spreadsheet that does not require an update, this information should not be included on the spreadsheet provided back to OSC.

Inserting New Rows into 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.

For inserted rows, CUNY must populate the following fields:

• Employee ID
• Empl Record Number
• New Effective Date
  • Effective date of the raise (See Effective Dates section above)
• NYS Job Code
  • Employee’s existing NYS Job Code as of the new effective date above
• New Action
  • PAY
• New Reason Code
  • SIC
• 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. In addition, any transactions unrelated to the 2021-2024 Blue and White Collar increases should not be included on the spreadsheet.  If a row was added to Job Data after the original spreadsheet was provided to CUNY, the agency must submit a Job Request through PayServ to update the row.

Updating Existing Rows on the Spreadsheet

All rows appearing on a potentially eligible employee’s Job Data record were included on the spreadsheet provided to CUNY (see Reports Available Prior to Processing section). These existing rows may need to be updated in order to correctly implement the retroactive general salary increases.

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

• Employee ID
• Empl Record Number
• New Effective Date
  • Effective date of the pre-existing Job Data row.
• NYS Job Code
  • Employee’s existing NYS Job Code as of the new effective date above
• New Action Code:
  • PAY
• New Reason Code:
  • SIC if the effective date of the row equals the effective date of the raise (See Effective Date section above).
  • CSL if the effective date of the row does not equal a raise effective date and the employee has a Comp Rate Code of ANN
  • CRT if the effective date of the row does not equal a raise effective date and the employee has a Comp Rate Code of HRY
• New Comp Rate
  • Final calculated Comp Rate after applying all eligible raises

If the employee is not eligible for a raise on the subsequent row provided to CUNY, no change should be made. In addition, any transactions unrelated to the 2021-2024 Blue and White Collar increases should not be included on the spreadsheet.  If a row was added to Job Data after the original spreadsheet was provided to CUNY, the agency must submit a Job Request through PayServ to update the row.

Updating Subsequent Job Data Rows Not Provided on the Original Spreadsheet

  Any transactions CUNY identifies as being eligible for the general salary increase which were not provided on OSC’s original spreadsheet must be submitted via the Job Request process.

OSC Actions

OSC will process CUNY’s spreadsheet in PayServ by inserting a Job Data record using each Employee ID, Employee Record Number, Effective Date, NYS Job Code, Action, Reason Code, and Comp Rate as provided above. If the Effective Date being inserted does not already exist in PayServ, OSC will insert an Effective Sequence of 0. Otherwise, OSC will insert the next available Effective Sequence on the corresponding Effective Date.

Subsequent Job Data Rows Inserted after the Spreadsheet is Processed

OSC will provide CUNY with a list of all rows that have been inserted into employee Job Data records after the final spreadsheet is processed in PayServ. Any necessary salary changes for these rows must be submitted by CUNY through the Job Request process. OSC has provided this listing to CUNY as of close of business Friday, 01/10/2025.

Retroactive Processing

OSC Actions - Automatic Retroactive Processing

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

If an employee is eligible for a retroactive increase and has been paid by multiple agencies in the same Employee Record Number since the effective date of the increase, all retroactive adjustments must be paid in the most current agency within that record number. If an employee has been paid in multiple record numbers, each record number will be evaluated separately, and retroactive payments will be processed in the record number in which the increase occurred.

Agency Actions – Reporting Retroactive Adjustments

Time Entry earnings codes that are submitted with an amount will not be adjusted automatically. Therefore, beginning in Institution Pay Period 22C, agencies must report the adjustment amount for earnings such as Adjustment (ADJ) and Addl Job (AJB).

Agency Actions – Correcting an Automatic Retroactive Adjustment

When certain conditions exist in an employee’s record, the automatic retroactive adjustment may be incorrect. Therefore, the agency is responsible for identifying employees who meet the following conditions and, if necessary, submitting the necessary adjustment:

• If an employee has a check returned or exchanged on an AC-230 for dates on or after the effective date of the payment, the payroll system does not consider the AC-230 when calculating the automatic retroactive adjustment.
• If earnings were previously reported using Earnings Code RGS (Regular Pay Salary Employee) and a date range that exceeded the number of days reported, the system will calculate the adjustment of earnings based on the number of workdays within the range.
• Adjustments for earnings that are calculated automatically such as OT at 1.5 CUNY 40 hr (Earnings Code OTE), will be calculated incorrectly if the dates previously reported as a single entry on the Time Entry page overlap the effective date of the payment. The system will calculate an adjustment for all earnings reported in a single entry based on the salary in effect on the Earnings End Date.
• For employee 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 turn off (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 automatic payment is processed but before the paycheck is received by the employee, the employee must be notified of the overpayment and the adjustment that will be reported in a subsequent pay period.

Agency Actions - Submitting an Adjustment

When an adjustment is needed for COVID-19 related overtime such as Covid-19 OT override (Earnings Code CVO), Earnings Code ARC (Adjust Retro Raise for C19 OT) must be used to process the adjustment. When an adjustment is needed for non-COVID-19 related overtime or recall such as OT Override (Earnings Code OTO), Earnings Code ARO (Adj Retro Raise for OT and RCL) must be used to process the adjustment. Please refer to Payroll Bulletin No. 1893 – Reporting Adjustments to Overtime for more information. Agencies must continue to use Earnings Code AJR (Adjust Raise) for all other override Time Entry Earnings Codes requiring a manual adjustment as a result of a retroactive salary increase.

To process a retroactive adjustment or correct an automatic retroactive adjustment, agencies must submit the following information on the Time Entry page or the Time Entry Interface (NPAY502) using Earnings Code AJR, ARC, or ARO:

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:

Tax Information:

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

The adjustments (Earnings Codes AJR, ARC, and ARO) and retroactive adjustments (Earnings Code RXX) are supplemental taxable income and will be included in the employee’s taxable gross subject to all employment and income taxes.

Federal, State, and New York City income tax withholding will be calculated using the Aggregate method. Yonkers income tax withholding will be calculated using the Flat Rate method (1.95975% for Yonkers residents and 0.50% for Yonkers non-residents).

Special Wage Payments for Individuals Who Filed for Retirement Social Security Benefits:

Per Internal Revenue Service Publication 957, OSC will be reporting retroactive payments made to individuals who have filed for Social Security benefits to the Social Security Administration (SSA).

As PayServ does not include this information, OSC will be mailing a Request for Special Wage Payment Report to inactive individuals who are 62 or older in the calendar year and to active employees with the New York Retiree Indicator checked in Modify a Person who receive the retroactive payment. Recipients of this mailing will be asked to fill out the request and return it to OSC for inclusion on the Special Wage Payment Report to SSA. This report will be submitted to SSA after the close of the 2024 tax year.

It is important that agencies ensure the New York Retiree Indicator box is checked for rehired retirees. Please see Payroll Bulletin No. 1728 – New York Retiree Indicator for further details on the New York Retiree Indicator box.

Payroll Register and Employee’s Paycheck/Advice:

The Earnings Code and the amount paid will be displayed on the Payroll Register. The Earnings Description and the amount paid will appear on the employee’s paycheck stub or direct deposit advice. If the number of earnings codes exceeds 13, agencies should utilize Locked Query LQ_PCD_PAYCHECK_EARNINGS_BY_ID to identify a complete list of earnings.

Undeliverable Checks:

When a valid payroll check is undeliverable due to the agency’s inability to locate the employee, the agency should follow the Agency Actions identified in Payroll Bulletin No. 1786 – Non-Negotiated and/or Undeliverable New York State Payroll Checks.

Checks issued to eligible employees who are now deceased should be submitted as a stop payment request with a reason of Exchange in PayServ. The Report of Check Exchange (AC 1476-P), Next of Kin Affidavit (AC 934-P) and original death certificate should be submitted to the Payroll Reversal and Exchange mailbox at the same time as the stop payment request. 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 this bulletin may be directed to the Payroll Earnings mailbox.

Questions regarding payment eligibility may be directed to the University Manager of Payroll Systems and Operations at CUNY Central Office.

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

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