Purpose

To inform State University of New York (SUNY) agencies of the implementation of the New York State Paid Family Leave.

Affected Employees

As of January 1, 2019, employees in the following Bargaining Units will be affected:

08 United University Professions SUNY 13 Management Confidential SUNY 68 Lifeguard UUP

Background

In 2016, the Governor signed into law a comprehensive Paid Family Leave policy. The law provides for a deduction from employee wages to fund the program. Paid Family Leave coverage is funded by employee payroll deductions. State employees who are represented by a union may be covered if Paid Family Leave is collectively bargained. Complete details on Paid Family Leave for these employee groups are available at:

https://www.suny.edu/benefits/attendance/pfl/

The New York State Department of Financial Services has announced that the 2019 premium rate and the maximum weekly employee contribution for coverage will be 0.153% (0.00153) of an employee’s weekly wage. The maximum employee premium deduction for Paid Family Leave will be $107.97 per year.

Effective Date(s)

Deductions will start being taken from employees’ pay on January 9, 2019.

Eligibility Criteria

All eligible UUP and SUNY M/C represented employees in the above mentioned bargaining units are required to be covered under this program.

OSC Actions

OSC has created a status field on the State Tax Data page labeled FLI (Family Leave Insurance) Status to identify employees who will have the new tax deduction taken.

The FLI Status field will be set to ‘Subject’ for all employees in the eligible bargaining units.

For all other employees, the FLI Status field will be set to ‘Not Applicable.’

OSC will deduct Paid Family Leave from employees’ paychecks using the current rate of 0.00153, not to exceed the maximum deduction of $107.97 annually.

Most earnings will be included in this calculation. (Click for a list of Earnings Codes that will not be included.)

OSC Actions-Earnings

OSC has created Action/Reason codes to be used to identify employees who have received approval to use the NY Paid Family Leave benefit.

• LOA/PFL- Leave of Absence/Paid Family Leave
• RFL/PFL- Return from Leave/Paid Family Leave

Agency Actions

SUNY System Administration has advised that agencies must make SUNY M/C and UUP represented employees aware of the option to waive PFL if they will not meet the service requirements for the NY Paid Family Leave program

AND

Verify any waivers received from the employee and retain the form in the employee’s record. (The waiver form and special UUP and SUNY MC instructions can be found at https://www.suny.edu/benefits/attendance/pfl/.)

AND

Update the employee’s FLI Status field to ‘Exempt’ so that premiums will not be deducted. See Job Aid_A for instructions.

To process waivers in time to affect the first paycheck from which deductions will be taken, agencies must update the Employee Tax Data Page by December 28, 2018 for the Administration paycheck (January 9, 2019).

Agencies are responsible for tracking continued eligibility for PFL waivers, and upon determining that an employee is no longer eligible for a waiver, the agency must advise the employee that the waiver will be revoked.

The PayServ implementation of the NY Paid Family Leave program has resulted in a new procedure to update eligible employees who currently live and work in a state other than New York and are currently having taxes withheld for the non-New York state. Agency payroll officers will be required to update the employee’s tax data to include NY as one of their withholding states in order to have the premium deduction withheld for Paid Family Leave.

See the Non-NY Employee Job Aid.

Agency Actions - Earnings

SUNY agencies are responsible for using the correct Leave of Absence Reason code in PayServ. For eligibility criteria pertaining to the Paid Family Benefit, agencies should refer to:

https://www.suny.edu/benefits/attendance/pfl/

If an employee has initially been placed on a Leave of Absence with an incorrect reason code, the agency must correct the Action/Reason code to PFL as soon as they are notified that the leave of absence is due to Paid Family Leave. If there are no subsequent rows in the employee’s job history, the agency must enter the following transactions on Job Data:

• The appropriate Rein Leave transaction
• Leave of Absence - LOA/PFL

If there are subsequent rows, the agency must submit a Job Action Request DTA/Cor Hist and enter the reason in the status reason box on the page.

If an employee is no longer receiving the Paid Family Leave Benefit, the proper Return from Leave code RFL/PFL must be submitted.

If a leave of absence transaction is submitted retroactively, refer to Payroll Bulletins #470 and #1038 for information regarding overpayments and their recovery.

The use of NY Paid Family Leave will not affect an employee’s anniversary date or increment code. However, this benefit is not eligible for Retirement service credit.

Control-D Reports Available After Processing

A Control-D report - NTAX511 (Paid Family Leave) has been created to provide agencies with a list of all employees with the NY Paid Family Leave deduction and the amount taken.

Tax information

The Paid Family Leave deduction will appear as an after-tax deduction on the employee paycheck and will be reported on the employee Form W-2 for tax year 2019.

Deduction Refund Processing

Refund requests for an erroneously processed Paid Family Leave deduction should be submitted via email by the Agency Payroll Officer to the Tax and Compliance mailbox. The email subject line should state “Paid Family Leave Refund Request.” The Agency Payroll Officer should provide the: Emplid, Employee Name, and Refund Amount.

Payroll Register and Employee's Paycheck/Advice

The Paid Family Leave deduction will be displayed on the Payroll Register. The deduction description (NY Paid Family Leave), the amount deducted and the year to date deduction total appear on the employee’s paycheck stub or direct deposit advice statement. Agencies will be able to view the deduction for PFL in PayServ on the “Review Paycheck” page under Taxes.

Questions

Questions regarding Paid Family Leave or the payroll deduction should be directed to the State University of New York at [email protected].

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