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When will I receive my first paycheck?
Additional Five-Day Lag (aka Salary Withholding Program)
How do I get a replacement copy of my W-2?
Funding Source Payroll Modes
Why is there a discrepancy between my gross annual
earnings and my annual base salary?
How do I obtain a history of my
employment with NYS?
Buffalo State processes four
New York State payrolls that are administered by the Office of the State Comptroller
(OSC). The biweekly paid payrolls include:
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Administrative State payroll for all regular employees;
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Graduate Assistant (GA) payroll;
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two Institutional
student payrolls: Student Assistants (SA) and the College Work-Study
Program (CWSP).
Budgeted positions funded
from Personal Service Regular (PSR) and Temporary Service (TS)
positions can be paid on the regular State payroll. All appointments to student
payrolls and the GA payroll must be funded from temporary
service funds (TS).
Student employees appointed
to either the student assistant (SA) or college work-study program (CWSP) payrolls
are paid on an hourly basis through the timely submission of biweekly timesheets.
Pay periods for all payrolls begin on Thursday and end on Wednesday. However,
the payroll cycles are alternating--the regular State payroll and GA payroll
are paid one week and the two student payrolls (SA and CWSP) are paid the next
week with everyone getting paid every other week on cycle.
While the GA and student payrolls
have restricted payment modes of biweekly rate and hourly, respectively, employees
appointed to the regular State payroll may be paid on one of several payment
modes depending upon the nature of their appointments and their funding source. The payment modes include hourly (HRY), biweekly
rate (BIW), and fee (FEE ) for employees paid on other than an annual salary
basis and annual (ANN, CAL, CYF). Definitions
are below.
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New York State employees are paid on a biweekly lag basis, which means that
payment is made either two or three weeks after the completion of the pay
period.
If you are an employee on the administration payroll
(e.g., faculty professionals, graduate assistants), your first check or direct
deposit advice will be issued at the end of the 2nd pay period after you begin
working. For most people, it is approximately 4 weeks after you begin work. You
may or may not receive a full paycheck for the first pay period, depending upon
when your first day of work occurred in the pay cycle, and if your bargaining
unit includes a provision for salary withholding.
If you are an employee on the student Assistant or federal
college work study payroll, your first check or direct deposit advice will
be issued 1 week after the end of your second pay period worked. For most
people, it is approximately 5 weeks after you begin work. Since these payrolls
have an hourly pay basis, your check or advice should reflect all hours worked
in the first pay period.
All payment dates are dependent upon payroll deadlines. If appointment paperwork
is received after the payroll deadline, a significant delay in payment may
occur.
(Chapter 78 of the Laws of 1982 authorized the State of New York to implement
the two-week lag pursuant to agreements with the unions representing State
employees.)
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In 1990, legislation was signed that included a feature calling for a "salary
withholding and lump sum payment program". An additional five-day lag is
assessed to CSEA, PEF, Management Confidential Classified, and Management Confidential employees. The
five-day lag is implemented by withholding the
equivalent of one day's pay in each of the appointee's first five pay periods.
The payroll office keeps records of the amount owed to employees for the five-day lag and employees receive payment for this lag upon separation from
service at their salary rate at that time.
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Contact the Payroll Office at 878-4124.
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State business rules require
that only Personal Service Regular (PSR) positions on an approved
Schedule of Positions (SOP) can be paid on an annual salary basis. All positions
charged to Temporary Service (TS) must be paid either hourly, biweekly,
or on a fee basis.
Temporary Service (TS) Temporary Service funds
are provided in state budgets to provide for substitutes, part-time appointees,
and other temporary support appointments for short term projects or staffing
needs. The pay basis modes for temporary
service appointments include:
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Hourly
Payment Mode (HRY) - employees who are paid for the actual hours
worked (usually part-time, intermittent, as needed or without a defined work
pattern)
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Biweekly Payment Mode (BIW) - employees who
usually work for a certain number of pay periods. All part-time faculty
and graduate assistants are charged to temporary service and paid a biweekly
rate for 10 pay periods per semester or 20 pay periods per year
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FEE Payment Mode (FEE) - employees who are hired to
accomplish a specific task or project and receive periodic FEE based payments at
certain stages of completion
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Personal
Service Regular (PSR) The pay basis modes
for annual salaried appointments in positions budgeted in PSR include:
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ANN (Annual) - employees with 365/366 days
per year obligation paid over 12 months
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CAL (Calendar) - employees (e.g., faculty) with an academic year obligation
paid over
12 months
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CYF (College
Year Full) - professional employees with a college year obligation
(less than 12 months) paid over 12 months
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Note: In accordance with rules issued
by OSC, salary increases cannot be made
retroactively more than two pay periods plus the one in which the raise is processed
unless provided for in legislation passed to implement collective bargaining
unit agreements providing retroactive pay. OSC may approve exceptions if justification
is provided that includes an acceptable reason for the agency’s failure to approve
and process the salary adjustment on time.
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Since a fiscal year cannot be divided equally into biweekly periods,
computation of the biweekly wage is made by dividing the annual salary by the
number of calendar days in the fiscal year (365 or in the case of a leap year,
366) and multiplying this result by fourteen, the number of calendar days in a
biweekly period. To reduce this process to one step, the fractions 14/365 and
14/366 are converted to multiplication factors: .038356 (non-leap year) and
.038251 (leap year).
To illustrate this, we’ll use the annual salary of $60,687 to compute the salary
for 2007. Both multiplication factors, leap year and non-leap year, are used as
Fiscal Year 2006-07 is a non-leap year and 2007-08 is a leap year. This employee
is on the Administration Lag payroll cycle.
| Time Period |
Annual Salary |
Multiply Factor |
Biweekly Salary |
# of Pay Periods |
Resultant Salary |
| 1/10/07 to 4/4/07 |
$60,687 |
.038356 |
$2327.71 |
7 |
$16,293.97 |
| 4/18/07 to 12/26/07 |
$60,687 |
.038251 |
$2321.34 |
19 |
$44,105.46 |
The amount of gross annual earnings for 2007 will be $60,399.43.
Normally, there are 26 pay periods during a calendar year. Due to the
idiosyncrasies in the calendar and the State's payroll cycle, State employees
occasionally receive 27 paychecks in a calendar year, instead of 26. When this
occurs, the employee's gross annual earnings will be higher than the annual
salary.
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Current and former State employees may contact the Payroll Office
at 878-4124 for information regarding employment with New York State from 1998 to the
present.
For information regarding employment prior to 1998, visit the
Office
of the State Comptroller (scroll down to Employment Verification Requests)
for forms and instructions.
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