Purpose

The purpose of this bulletin is to provide details on changes to mid pay-period Additional Pay resulting from the upgrade of the PayServ system to PeopleSoft version 9.2.

Affected Employees

All PayServ users are impacted by these changes. Specific changes may also impact certain State employees.

Background

The Office of the State Comptroller is upgrading PayServ to PeopleSoft version 9.2 (v 9.2) on March 15, 2021. In order to reduce customizations, improve processing, and address stakeholder concerns, a variety of changes are planned as part of the upgrade. The number of Additional Pay (Addl Pay) Adjustments required when there is a change in Addl Pay effective in the middle of the current pay period will be reduced in v 9.2. As a result, fewer manual adjustments will need to be entered by agency PayServ users.

Effective Dates

All changes described in this bulletin will be effective at Go Live on March 15, 2021.

Addl Pay Proration

In v 9.1 the system is not able to calculate certain Addl Pay earnings when there is a change in Addl Pay that is effective in the middle of the current pay period.

In v 9.2, the system will automatically calculate Addl Pay adjustments for certain Addl Pay changes. Addl Pay Proration affects the following Addl Pay codes provided the employee is in any paid status immediately before and on the transaction effective date:

• Derived Biweekly earnings (e.g, Location Pay, Geographic Pay, and CUNY Longevity Differentials);
• Pre-Shift Briefing codes PS1 and PS3, and Administrative Maintenance Pay (AMP) for certain Security bargaining units.

Note: Overpayment codes and one-time payment codes will not be affected.

Adjustments

In v 9.2, Addl Pay adjustments may no longer be needed if an employee has one of the below transactions effective in the current pay period and processed for the current pay period:

• Placed on a Paid Leave of Absence
• Returned from a Paid Leave of Absence
• Has a work percentage change on Job Data
• Addl Pay is started
• Addl Pay is ended
• Annual earnings amount of Addl Pay changes

Note: Future End dating an Addl Pay

If an end date is entered on a derived biweekly and the end date is after the end of the current pay period (future dated end date), PayServ will NOT prorate the addl pay based on the end date. It will prorate based on the current pay period effective date only. As a result, the agency must enter an adjustment in the pay period in which the end date falls in order to pay the employee correctly. OSC does not recommend future dating end dates on derived biweekly Addl Pay earnings codes, except in certain situations such as employees in Pay Basis Code 21P receiving Addl Pay, because this may cause errors on the employee’s Addl Pay record.

Mid Pay Period Proration

In 9.2, when PayServ detects one of the eligible changes effective in the middle of the current pay period in an employee’s record, PayServ automatically inserts a Sequence 2 row for the effective date entered on the Create Addl Pay page if an adjustment is needed.

The proration will calculate when the effective date of the change is within the current pay period, but not when the change is effective on the first day of the pay period. If the change is effective on the first day of the pay period, no proration calculation will be done and the employee will receive the amount of pay reflected in the Sequence 1 row on Addl Pay.

The Sequence 1 row will show the biweekly amount as the Earnings amount, v 9.2 will pay this amount for the entire pay period while the employee is in a paid status. The Sequence 2 row will have the same Earnings Code and Effective Date as the Sequence 1 row, and will show the adjustment needed to pay the employee as the Earnings amount and the Goal Amount, based on the employee’s work schedule in Job Data. The end date of the current pay period will show as the End Date. The Goal Balance on the Sequence 2 row will be filled in after the checks are confirmed.

V 9.2 will pay both the Sequence 1 row, which equals the calculated biweekly rate in effect on the final day of the pay period, and the Sequence 2 row, which equals the adjustment needed to pay the employee based on the employee’s work schedule reported in PayServ.

Note: The proration is calculated based on the employee’s work schedule reported in PayServ. If an employee’s work schedule is not accurately reflected in PayServ, the proration will be calculated and entered by PayServ based on the work schedule in PayServ, and an Addl Pay Adjustment may be needed to pay the employee per the alternate work schedule. This adjustment must be calculated with the automatic proration factored in. Therefore, it is imperative that the employee’s work schedule is accurately reflected in 9.2 to help avoid agency manual adjustment.

Both the Sequence 1 and Sequence 2 rows will be loaded to the employee’s paycheck and will be visible in the Review Paycheck screen in PayServ. The employee’s pay stub will display the total of the 2 Addl Pay sequence rows. The employee will only see the total amount they were paid for the pay period.

Future Retroactive Transactions

If there is a future retroactive change to an automatically calculated Addl Pay Proration, PayServ will only recalculate the Sequence Number 1 row. It will not recalculate the Sequence Number 2 proration row. Retro will pay any difference based on the Sequence Number 1 row only. The agency must enter a manual adjustment to correctly pay any retro for the Sequence Number 2 proration row.

Transactions Effective Retroactively

The Mid Pay Period Proration will not apply if an Addl Pay change is effective retroactively. The agency must enter a manual Addl Pay adjustment to pay the employee correctly.

Agency Actions

Agencies must test mid-pay period proration during the Agency Testing and Training period before v 9.2 goes live.

Questions

Any questions regarding this bulletin may be directed to the Payroll Improvement Project mailbox. Please include “Bulletin PIP-012” in the Subject line of the email.