Purpose:

The purpose of this bulletin is to inform agencies of OSC’s automatic processing of the January 2024 minimum wage increases for hourly employees and provide instructions for payments not processed automatically, including increases for employees whose annual salary is below the annualized equivalent of the minimum wage for their work location.

Affected Employees:

Employees in hourly or annual positions who meet the eligibility criteria are affected.

Background:

Chapter 56 of the Laws of 2023 increased New York State’s minimum wage for those employees in non-governmental positions. The Director of the Budget establishes the pay rate for State seasonal and other non-statutory positions paid using an hourly rate.

A memorandum dated 09/14/2016 from Nancy L. Zimpher, former Chancellor of the State University of New York (SUNY), authorizes the alignment of the minimum wage paid to hourly employees and student workers with the minimum wage levels approved as part of the 2016/17 enacted State budget. Beginning in 2019, all increases to the minimum wage will be dependent upon an analysis of the region to see if increases should continue and at what rate, as decided upon by the Director of the New York State Budget. 

In addition, eligible full or part-time annual employees should receive at least the annualized equivalent of the minimum hourly rate associated with their position location (hourly rate x 2088 = annualized equivalent).

Effective Dates:

The January 2024 minimum wage increase for hourly employees will be processed using the following effective dates and check dates:

Eligibility Criteria:

Employees with a Comp Rate Code of HRY on or after the appropriate effective date and an hourly rate less than the amount provided on the chart below are eligible for the 2024 minimum wage increase.

Employees with a Comp Rate Code of ANN on or after the appropriate effective date and a salary less than the annualized equivalent of the minimum hourly rate for their work location are eligible to receive an increase to the appropriate annualized minimum.

OSC Actions:

OSC will process the January 2024 minimum wage increase for hourly employees based on the Position Location field on an employee’s Job Data page as follows:

If the employee meets the eligibility criteria and has a Payroll Status of Active, Leave with Pay, or Leave of Absence on the appropriate effective date, OSC will automatically insert a row on the employee’s Job Data page using the appropriate effective date and Action/Reason code of Pay Rate Change/MWH (Minimum Wage Hourly) and will increase the employees hourly rate to the new minimum hourly wage for the applicable location, as noted above.

Agency Actions – Hourly Employees:

Agencies must identify employees whose hourly rate in effect on the applicable effective date provided above does not correspond to the Minimum Hourly Wage associated with the Position Location field on the employee’s Job Data page in effect for this date. If these values do not align, agencies must take one of the following actions to update the employee’s PayServ record, as appropriate. All subsequent effective dated rows requiring correction should be updated. 

• Position Location field on Job Data page is incorrect/rate of pay is correct – 
  • Agencies must submit an update with the correct location code for the position to SUNY Central Administration to be included on the NHRP720 SUNY Position File Transaction Report. 
• Position Location field on Job Data page is correct/rate of pay is incorrect – submit a PAY/MWH through the Job Action Request page with the correct rate for the employee’s job location.

In addition, agencies must submit a Position Data Request AC3219 form to the Position mailbox to request an update to the Approved Salary Rate field on the Position Information page in PayServ for an employee’s position.

Agency Actions – Annual Employees:

Agencies must submit a Pay Change on the Job Action Requests page using the Reason code MWS (Minimum Wage Salary) and the appropriate effective date as indicated on the above chart to increase the annual salary of eligible employees whose salary falls below the annualized equivalent of the minimum wage associated with their position location as follows:

Questions:

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

Questions regarding position information may be directed to the Position Management mailbox.