CUNY Bulletin No. CU-346

Subject
Salary Increases for Employees Represented by the Professional Staff Congress (PSC)
Date Issued
October 15, 2008

Purpose

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

Affected Employees

CUNY employees in Bargaining Units T8, TC, GA, CE and AJ

Effective Date(s)

General Salary Increases are effective September 20, 2007 and October 6, 2008 and will be processed in Pay Period 16C, paychecks dated November 6, 2008

Background

Pursuant to the Memorandum of Agreement between the City University of New York and the Professional Staff Congress for the term of September 20, 2007 through October 19, 2010 and Chapter 287 of the Laws of 2008 which calls for General Salary Increases for eligible employees.

Contract Provisions and Eligibility

  • Effective September 20, 2007, all full and part-time employees who are Active or on Paid or Unpaid Leave in Bargaining Units AJ, CE, GA, TC and T8 shall receive a General Salary Increase of 3.15%, on the 9/19/07 salary, rounded to the nearest dollar for salaried employees or the nearest cent for hourly employees (.5 rounds up, less than .5 rounds down).
  • Effective October 6, 2008, all full and part-time employees who are Active or on Paid or Unpaid Leave in Bargaining Units AJ, CE, GA, TC and T8 shall receive a General Salary Increase of 4% (compounded), on the 10/5/08 salary, rounded to the nearest dollar for salaried employees or the nearest cent for hourly employees (.5 rounds up, less than .5 rounds down).

Increases will be applied in accordance with the eligibility criteria set by the CUNY University Office of Labor Relations.

OSC Actions

OSC will apply automatic increases as follows:

  • For salaried employees, all raise rows effective 9/20/07 and 10/6/08 will be inserted with the Action/Reason code of PAY/SAC. All subsequent rows for Annual employees will be updated using Reason code CSL.
  • For Hourly employees, all raise rows effective 9/20/07 and 10/6/08 will be inserted with the Action/Reason code of PAY/SAC. All subsequent rows for Hourly employees will be inserted using Reason code CRT.
  • All subsequent rows will be increased based on the raise processing below.
Annual Employees in Titles with Steps on PSC Salary Schedules in Salary Plan C02- C26
  • All annual salaried employees who are in titles with steps who are on step on the 9/19/07 salary schedule will be updated as required to the corresponding step on the 9/20/07 and 10/6/08 schedules, provided the employee’s Job record and Position record match on grade, salary plan and bargaining unit.
  • Salary increases will not be processed for employees who are not on step.
  • Salary increases will be processed for employees who have a Position Change or Transfer, on or after the effective date of the salary increase, to a position with a salary plan other than C02-C26, as long as the employee remains on step in one of these salary plans.
Annual Employees in Titles with No Steps (salary range) on PSC Salary Schedules (Medical Professor and Law School titles)
  • Employees in Salary Plan CNY must be Active, on Paid Leave or on a leave on the day prior to and the day of the salary increase to be eligible to receive the raise.
  • Percentage increases will be applied on the general salary increase effective dates. Subsequent rows will be updated with the value of the raise.
  • Salary increases will not be processed for employees who are not in Active, Leave of Absence, Paid Leave of Absence status on the day prior to and the day of the salary increase and become Active after the effective date of the salary increase.
  • Salary increases will not be processed for employees who have a Position Change or Transfer on or after the effective date of the salary increase.
Non-Teaching Hourly Adjuncts with Steps on the PSC Salary Schedule
  • All Hourly employees in non-teaching titles with steps who are on step on the 9/19/07 salary schedule will be updated as required to the corresponding step on the 9/20/07 and 10/6/08 schedules.
  • Salary increases will not be processed for employees who are not on step.
Continuing Education Teachers (Hourly Non-Teaching Adjuncts with No Steps in Job Codes 016038 and 016039)
  • The hourly rates of all Continuing Education Hourly employees in non-teaching titles with no step schedule will be increased by 3.15% and 4% respectively, provided the employee is Active on the day prior to and the day of the salary increase. Employees appointed (Hire, Rehire, CCH, Posn chg, Transfer) to one of these job codes with an action date on or after 9/19/07 and do not have a 9/19/07 raise row must also have earnings between 11/1/02 and 9/19/07.
  • Subsequent rows will be updated with the value of the raise as long as the employee remains in either of these job codes.
  • Employees who do not have eligible earnings and whose rate is below the new minimum rate will be increased to the new minimum rate.
  • Employees who do not have eligible earnings or were hired after 9/20/07 or 10/6/08 whose rate is at or above the new minimum are not eligible for a percentage increase.
  • OSC is unable to determine the hourly rate of pay applied to the contracts of employees in this title. Therefore, due to the specific raise processing criteria noted above, increases for Adjunct Continuing Education Teachers on Contract (Job Code 016038) will be processed by the agency.
Teaching Adjuncts on Contract Pay
  • All Teaching Adjuncts who are paid on Contract Pay will receive an automatic adjustment for previously paid Contract Earnings. Adjustments will be calculated based on criteria set by CUNY University Office of Labor Relations. A total adjustment amount will be automatically inserted into the Time Entry page using the Earn Code AJR.
  • Fall 2007 – Adjuncts who were paid on Contract Pay for the Fall 2007 semester will receive a prorated adjustment based on a calculation of earnings paid prior to 9/20/07 and earnings paid 9/20/07 and later. OSC will apply the 3.15% to .81818 of the total paychecks issued for the CON, C17, C18, C19 earnings for effective dates 8/30/07-1/2/08. (The 2007 academic calendar contract is 77 days: 14 days at old rate and 63 at new rate.  63/77 = 81.81818% new rate.)
  • Spring 2008 and Summer 2008 – Adjuncts will receive a full adjustment. OSC will apply 3.15% to the total paychecks issued of the Earnings Code CON, C17, C18, and C19 for the earnings dates 1/17/08-5/21/08 and 6/5/08-8/13/08.
  • Fall 2008 – Adjustments for the Fall Contracts will be processed in Pay Period 17C and paid in the 11/20/08 paycheck.  Adjuncts on Contract Pay for the Fall 2008 semester will receive a prorated adjustment based on a calculation of the combined 2007 and 2008 increases. (The 2008 academic calendar contract is 76 days: 24 days at 3.15% rate and 52 at the compounded 4% rate.) For employees who are Active with an active contract for the entire Fall contract period (8/28/08 through payment date), OSC will increase the Fall contract amount by .05973, insert a PAY/CCA row and update subsequent rows with the Action of DTA by inserting a PAY/CRT row.
    Exception:  Increases will not be processed for employees with a PAY, POS or Transfer row effective after 8/28/08 or with a Term row effective on or after 8/28/08. An exception listing will be provided to the agencies after automatic processing is complete.
  • Adjustments to Time Entry AJT payments effective 9/20/07 or later will be processed manually by the agency.
  • Contract employees who had an OVP on the Additional Pay page between the effective date of 8/30/07 and 8/13/08, or had a check returned via AC 230 since 8/30/07 in the same record number, will not be automatically adjusted for any semester. Agencies should review the exception listing.

Control-D Reports Available Prior to Raise Processing

The following Control-D reports are available for agency review prior to processing of the automatic salary increases:

NHRP709 Mass Salary Increase Exception Report

This report identifies employees who will not receive the automatic increment. Fields on the report include EmplID, Employee Record Number, Employee Name, Eff Date, Grade, Bargaining Unit, Sal Plan, Pay Basis Code, Part Time Percentage and FTA Salary. This report identifies the reason the employee’s salary was not increased as follows:

  • Position and Job do not match
  • Salary is off Step
NHRPTMP19 CUNY PSC 2007/2008 Retro Raise Exception Report

This report identifies Annual or Hourly employees who did not receive an automatic General Salary Increase. Fields on the report include Agency code, Name, EmplID, and Employee Record Number and message. This report identifies the reason the employee’s salary was not increased as follows:

  • Employee Not on Step for Sal Plan
  • No Processing-Position Change or Transfer
  • Employee Not on Step for Jobcode
  • No Raise Processed-Not Incumbent

Normal Processing in Pay Period 16C

Agency submission in Pay Period 16C for employees whose raise will be automatically calculated:

The agency must continue to use the 9/19/07 salary schedule when submitting Pay Changes, Position Changes, and Transfers for all employees whose raise will be calculated automatically and, if an increment code is required, the projected increment code for January or July 2009.

Agency submission in Pay Period 16C for employees whose raise will NOT be automatically calculated:

When submitting Pay Changes, Position Changes, and Transfers for all employees whose raise will not be calculated automatically, the agencies must apply the percentage increases or the movement to the corresponding step on the new charts where applicable.

When submitting Returns from Leave, LOAs, PLAs, Terminations and Retirements in Pay Period 16C for all employees who will not have a raise automatically applied, the salary rate on the preceding Job row will default on the row inserted directly on Job. Therefore, if the employee is entitled to the raise, the agency must enter a PAY/CSL transaction to correct the salary rate on the Job row, using the next highest sequence number for that date, and update all subsequent rows.

When submitting Data Changes on Job Request for employees in titles that will not receive an automatic increase, the Data Change must be reported after the applicable Job Request is entered on the Job Request page.

When submitting transactions in Time Entry in Pay Period 16C that require an amount such as RGS and AOT, the agency must calculate the earnings amount using the new rate regardless of how the raise is applied.

Agency Actions in Pay Period 16C

Pre-Raise: Agencies must review Control-D Reports NHRP709 and NHRPTMP19 as soon as possible. For annual and hourly employees whose Position and Job do not match or whose salary is off step, the agency must submit the appropriate transactions to correct the errors on the report prior to the scheduled implementation of the salary increases in Pay Period 16C. These corrections will enable automatic processing.

During Pay Period 16C: Agencies are responsible for calculating and submitting increases for employees in the groups identified below. The following Action/Reason codes must be used to report these increases.

For salaried employees:

  • To report increases effective 9/20/07 or 10/6/08, the Action/Reason of PAY/CFS must be used.
  • To report increases after 9/20/07 or 10/6/08, the Action/Reason of PAY/CSL must be used.

For Hourly employees:

  • To report increases effective 9/20/07 through 10/6/08, the Action/Reason of PAY/CRT must be used.
Annual Salary with Steps in Salary Plan C01

The agency must submit increases on the Job Request page for the appropriate effective dated rows and subsequent rows for all annual salaried employees in the following titles:

  • Distinguished Professor (Job Code 015937)
  • Visiting Distinguished Professor (Job Code 016094)
  • University Professor (Job Code 016042)
Annual Salary with Steps with Additional Compensation
  • The agency must submit the increases on the Job Request page for the appropriate effective dated rows and subsequent rows for all annual salaried employees who are not on step due to the inclusion of REM, SAB or RRI additional monies added to base salary.
    • Employees in REM positions (HEO/Asst Admin (016855) and Prof/Asst Admin (016839) are only eligible for an increase to the base salary of their unclassified position (movement to the corresponding step of the 9/20/07 and 10/6/08 salary schedule) if applicable.
    • Employees whose salary includes Recruitment/Retention Initiative (RRI) monies are only eligible for an increase to the base salary of their unclassified position (movement to the corresponding step of the 9/20/07 and 10/6/08 salary schedule) if applicable.
    • Employees whose salary includes Salary Flexibility (SAB) monies are eligible to receive percentage increases applied to their current Job salary.
Annual Employees with Salary Ranges
  • The agency must review the NHRPTMP19 Exception Report and submit Job Requests to apply increases for employees who have a POS or Transfer on or after the effective date of the salary increase or employees who do not meet the incumbency rules.
  • Exception: Law School titles are not subject to the incumbency rules and therefore do not need to be not in Active, Leave of Absence, Paid Leave of Absence status on date prior to effective date of increases. Agency should review NHRPTMP19 Exception Report for these employees and take corrective action if appropriate as follows:
    • Apply percentage increase to all rows regardless of status, as long as employee is in an eligible job code. New salary may not exceed the maximum amount of the range.
Hourly Pay Basis without Steps in Law School Titles
  • Agencies must submit Job Requests for all eligible employees in Job Codes 016017, 016018, & 016019.
  • Agencies must apply percentage increase to all rows regardless of status, as long as the employee is in an eligible job code. The employee does not need to be A, P or L on date prior to effective date of increases.
  • The employee’s new salary may not exceed the maximum amount of the range.
Continuing Education Teachers Paid on Contract Pay (Job Code 016038)

Due to the specific raise processing criteria for Continuing Education Teachers as outlined below and above in OSC Actions for Continuing Education Teachers (Hourly Adjuncts with No Steps in Job Codes 016038 and 016039), agencies must determine eligibility to receive the salary increases and manually calculate the adjustment.

    • For CET employees who received earnings during the Fall 2007, Spring or Summer 2008 semester, the agency must calculate the adjustment amount the employee is entitled to and submit a Time Entry transaction using the Earn Code AJR. Enter the begin date and end date of the adjustment period.
    • For CET employees who have a Fall 2008 contract, the agency must calculate the new contract amount based on the prorated calculation and submit a PAY/CCA transaction.
  • The hourly rates of all Continuing Education employees may be increased by 3.15% and 4% respectively, provided the employee:
      • is Active on the day prior to and the day of the salary increase
      • has earnings in a CET position between 11/1/02 and 9/19/07.
  • Subsequent rate changes should be increased by the value of the raise as long as the employee remains in a CET job code.
  • Employees who do not have eligible earnings and whose rate is below the new minimum rate should be increased to the new minimum rate.
  • Employees who do not have eligible earnings or were hired after 9/20/07 or 10/6/08 whose rate is at or above the new minimum are not eligible for a percentage increase.
Teaching Adjuncts on Contract Pay
  • AJT Time Entry earnings: Employees who received AJT time entry earnings effective 9/20/07 or later may be due an adjustment. The agency must calculate the adjustment amount the employee is entitled to and submit a Time Entry transaction using the Earn Code AJR. Enter the begin date and end date of the adjustment period.
  • Contract employees who had an OVP on the Additional Pay page between the effective date of 8/30/07 and 8/13/08, or had a check returned via AC 230 since 8/30/07 in the same record number, will not be automatically adjusted for any semester. The agency should review the exception listing and submit the appropriate transactions.

Agency Actions in Pay Period 17C & 18C

Teaching Adjuncts on Contract Pay for Fall 2008 Semester
  • Pay Period 17C: The agency must continue to use the 9/19/07 salary schedule when submitting Pay Changes, Position Changes, and Transfers for all contract employees.
  • Pay Period 18C: An exception listing will be provided to agencies after Pay Period 17C automatic processing is complete. The agency should review the exception listing and, in Pay Period 18C, submit pay changes for these employees if appropriate.

Automatic Retroactive Processing and Other Agency Actions

OSC will automatically calculate retroactive adjustments resulting from the 2007 and 2008 General Salary Increases.

Automatic retroactive payments will be processed for certain earnings reported on the Time Entry page.
The following is a list of the earn codes that will be automatically adjusted:  DCS, LSJ, LT1, PLS, RGS, SLS, RGH, Y58, Z58, Y17, Z17, Y33, Z33, Y74, Z74.

Agency Actions for Miscellaneous Earnings Not Automatically Adjusted

Increases to miscellaneous earnings, such as assigned overtime, adjunct payments, override codes, must be manually calculated and reported by the agency using the AJR earn code. The agency must calculate and submit retroactive adjustments for the following miscellaneous earnings that will not be adjusted automatically:  ADJ, AJT, AOT, LTO, PLO, RGO, SLO, Y01, Z01, Y72, Z72, YAR, ZAR, Y76, Z76, YLO, ZLO, Y35, Z35, YRO, ZRO, Y62, Z62. Adjustments for nonresident aliens should be made using the Earn Codes XAR, YAR, or ZAR. AJR may be paid in a single lump sum amount or broken down into raise periods (i.e. 9/20/07- 10/5/08). Detailed General Comments or a detailed worksheet must be available to OSC upon request. AJR 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 the 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 RGH and RGS, agencies must submit the applicable adjustment to adjust the system-calculated retroactive adjustment, whenever the earnings were previously reported in the Time Entry page as a single entry and the dates reported overlap the effective date of an increase. The system will adjust all earnings based on the salary rate in effect on the earnings end date.

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.

Additional Information Regarding Retroactive Payments
  • For employees who have worked in more than one agency since the effective date of an increase, all retroactive adjustments will be paid in the most current agency, provided the employee was paid by all agencies using the same Employee Record Number.
  • For employees who have worked in more than one agency and have been paid from more than one Employee Record Number since the effective date of an increase, the retroactive adjustment for earnings in each Employee Record Number will be paid in the most current agency, under each Employee Record Number. If an employee with multiple record numbers is receiving retroactive adjustments in two or more of these records and has an outstanding Overpayment in one record that will not be fully recovered by the retroactive adjustment, the agency may wish to set up an OVP in the other records in order to recover the outstanding overpayment.
  • For employees who are Inactive or on Leave Without Pay at the end of Pay Period 15C, the retroactive raise adjustment will be applied to any overpayment (OVP) set up in Additional Pay that has a Goal Amount and Goal Balance that are not equal, provided the OVP does not have an End Date. The system will recover the entire overpayment, provided the check is sufficient. If the overpayment balance is greater than the gross amount of the check, the entire check will be taken.
  • If the employee’s status is Active or Paid Leave on the last day of the pay period being processed: The system withholds the amount stated in the Earnings field or an amount equal to the difference between the Goal Balance and the Goal Amount, whichever is less.  If the check is not sufficient to recover the amount determined by the system, the system will take the entire check. Note: The agency may wish to increase the Earnings amount in order to recover a greater amount of, or the full amount of, an outstanding overpayment by inserting a row in Additional Pay using the Earn Code OVP
    • For the effective date, enter the first day of the current pay period.
    • Enter the increased amount of earnings to be deducted that pay period in the Earnings field. This amount must be preceded by a minus sign.
    • Do not change any other fields. Save changes.
    • If the goal amount is not recovered in full by this change, the agency must submit another OVP row the next pay period and reduce the Earnings amount appropriately.
  • Agencies should refer to Payroll Bulletin No. 470 and attachments for complete OVP recovery procedures.

Control-D Reports Available After Raise Processing

The following Control-D reports will be available after processing of the automatic salary increases:

NHRP704 Mass Salary Payment Report

This report identifies all employees who received the General Salary Increase. The report identifies all rows where the employee’s salary was automatically increased in an eligible bargaining unit. Other fields on the report include the EmplID, Employee Record Number, Employee Name, Grade, Bargaining Unit, Pay Basis Code, Part Time Percentage, Action Reason and Increment Code.

NHRPTMP19 CUNY PSC 2007/2008 Retro Raise Exception Report

This report identifies Annual or Hourly employees who did not receive an automatic General Salary Increase. Fields on the report include Agency code, Name, EmplID, and Employee Record Number and message. This report identifies the reason the employee’s salary was not increased as follows:

  • Employee Not on Step for Sal Plan
  • No Processing-Position Change or Transfer
  • Employee Not on Step for Jobcode
  • No Raise Processed-Not Incumbent

During the next pay period, 17C, the agency may submit Job Request transactions to apply general salary increases for these employees where applicable.

NHRP564 Contract Pay Adjustment Report

This report identifies the employees who received an AJR adjustment to their contract earnings. Fields on the report include DeptID, EmplID, Employee Record Number, Employee Name, Earns Begin and Earns End Dates and Adjustment amount.

Deductions for Inactive Employees

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

Code Narrative
274 Professional Staff Congress
290 Professional Staff Congress A/S
249 PSC Dues Grad Assistants
470 PSC Agency Shop Grad Assistants
467 PSC Adjunct Dues
468 PSC Adjunct Agency Shop
403 TIAA Supplemental Retirement Annuity (CUNY)*
406 Strike/Discip Fine
409 CUNY Disciplinary Fine
413 NBE Tax Deferred Annuity *
414 NYT Tax Deferred Annuity *
417 HRC TDA *
419 CUNY TDA Copeland *
425 Repay State Loans/Debt
426 Higher Ed Repay State Loan
433 Total Unemployment Ins Owed
445 HC Flexible Spending
582 CUNY SS/Med Deficiency GARNSH (Garnishment)
GARNSH Garnishments
603 TIAA Before Tax Arrears
604 TIAA After Tax Arrears

*Note: A special program will be run to identify Inactive employees with an active 403,413,414,417 or 419 deduction who did not have a contribution taken for calendar year 2008.

OSC will automatically cancel the deduction code for any Inactive employee who did not have a 2008 deduction taken. If an Inactive employee had a deduction from a 2008 paycheck, the deduction will not be cancelled.

Undeliverable Checks

Inactive employees may be eligible for a payment as a result of the adjustments. 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 Tax and Finance, Division of Treasury, per instructions in Payroll Bulletin No. 456.

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).

For recipients of a previously deceased employee's payroll checks where a Next of Kin Affidavit and Report of Check Exchange forms have been submitted, OSC will accept a photocopy of these forms to process the exchange of the check.

Questions

Questions about eligibility for Professional Staff Congress increments should be directed to the University Manager of Payroll Systems and Operations at CUNY Office of Human Resources Management.

Questions about processing transactions may be e-mailed to the Non-Executive Audit mailbox.