Subject

April 1, 2006 General Salary Increase and Location Pay Increase for Employees in the Unified Court System (UCS)

Purpose

To notify Unified Court System agencies of the April 2006 Salary and Location Pay Increases, to explain OSC’s automatic processing and to provide instructions for payments not processed automatically.

Affected Employees

Annual and Hourly represented employees in Bargaining Units SA, SR, SN, G9, F8, DR, SG, S9, SK, SD, and 87
Annual and Hourly unrepresented employees in Bargaining Units CT, 86, and 88

Background

Chapter 203 of the Laws of 2004 implements agreements between the State of New York and various bargaining units in the Unified Court System and provides for General Salary and Location Pay Increases for non-judicial employees.

Effective Date(s)

4/6/06 – Paychecks dated 5/3/06, Pay Period 1L.

Contract Provisions and Eligibility Criteria

April 1, 2006 General Salary Increase
The legislation provides for a 3% Salary Increase for hourly employees and salaried employees in graded and NS grade 560 positions unless the UCS Administrative Board determines part or all of the increase will be withheld from certain NS unrepresented employees.

• Payable 4/6/06.
• Revised April 1, 2006 Salary Schedule is attached.
• Annual employees receive a 3% Salary Increase, rounded to the next dollar or $950, whichever is greater. (Employees must be Active on the incumbency date of 4/1/06 or earlier to be eligible for the $950 minimum.)
• Hourly employees receive a 3% Salary Increase, rounded to the next cent, or $.52, whichever is greater. (Employees must be Active on the incumbency date of 4/1/06 or earlier to be eligible for the $.52 minimum.)

Location Pay Increase

• Effective April 6, 2006, Location Pay will be increased to $1,302 for employees in NYC, Rockland, Westchester, Nassau and Suffolk counties.
  
  
• Effective April 6, 2006, Location Pay will be increased to $651 for employees in Orange, Dutchess and Putnam counties.
  
  
• The Location Pay for Monroe County remains at $200.

OSC Automatic and Manual Processing

After payroll processing for Pay Period 1L is completed, OSC will automatically insert rows in the Job Data page to reflect the April 2006 3% Salary Increase for all annual and hourly employees in represented bargaining units and for all annual employees in unrepresented bargaining units, except as noted below and for employees on 05680 payroll.

These increases will be processed in the following manner:

• For employees in eligible bargaining units who, on the effective date of the increase (4/6/06) have a status of Active, Paid Leave (except those on Military Stipend Leave), or Leave without Pay with a reason of WDL, OSC will insert a row on the employee’s Job record, effective 4/6/06, using the Action/Reason codes of PAY/SAC (Pay Rate Change/Mass Salary Increase).
  
  
• Pay Change, Position Change (except Change Line) or Transfer Job Data rows effective 4/6/06 or later that have an Increment Code of 5555 will not be automatically updated. See Agency Actions section below for instructions regarding these employees.
  
  
• OSC will update all subsequent Job Data rows (except as noted above) effective 4/6/06 or later regardless of status, provided the employee is in an eligible bargaining unit using the Action/Reason code of PAY/CSL (Pay Rate Change/Correct Salary). Exception: If the employee was placed on a paid Military Stipend Leave after 4/6/06, the PLA row and subsequent rows that have an Increment Code of 5555 will not be updated.
  
  
• For employees who are on a Leave of Absence without Pay (not on WDL) on 4/6/06, the increase will be applied to the employee’s Job Data record only if the employee is returned to the payroll in an eligible bargaining unit in Pay Period 1. Rows will be inserted as of the effective date of the Rein Leave using the Action/Reason code of PAY/CSL (Pay Rate Change/Correct Salary) with the new salary, provided there is not already an existing PAY, POS or Transfer row for that effective date with an Increment Code of 5555.

Location Pay
OSC will automatically insert a row on the Additional Pay page effective 4/6/06 and later to increase the employee’s Location Pay (LOC) from $1,264 to $1,302 and Location Pay Mid-Hudson (LMH) from $632 to $651.

Agency Actions in Pay Period 1L/2C

Hourly Employees
Agencies must submit the increase for eligible hourly unrepresented employees in Pay Period 1L.

Agency 05680
The agency must submit General Salary Increases for eligible county clerks in Pay Period 2C.

Location Pay increases will be processed automatically in Pay Period 2C.

Salaried Employees
The following procedures must be used by the agency when reporting transactions in Pay Period 1L:

• For Pay Changes, Position Changes and Transfers with effective dates before 4/6/06:
  • The agency must not include the Service Increment, Longevity Payment, or 3% Salary Increase or minimum increase in the Pay Rate field.
  • The agency must report the increment code for April 2006.
    
    
• For Pay Changes, Position Changes (except Change Line) and Transfers effective on 4/6/06 or later, no automatic processing will be done by OSC:
  • The agency must include any Service Increment, Longevity Payment, or 3% Salary Increase that the employee may be eligible for in the Pay Rate field.
  • The agency must report the Increment Code 5555. This increment code will prevent the automatic raise from being applied.
  • In addition, if the agency must report a subsequent Job transaction for an employee who has a Pay Change, Position Change (except Change Line) or Transfer action effective 4/6/06 or later, the agency should enter the transaction after the Pay Change, Position Change or Transfer transaction is approved by OSC and appears on Job. This will ensure the subsequent row will contain the appropriate salary rate and Increment Code of 5555 and will not be automatically updated by OSC.
  • After the automatic raise processing is complete, OSC will update the increment codes of all employees with Increment Code 5555 to the projected 2007 increment code.
    
    

Control-D Reports

The following Control-D report is available prior to processing of the automatic salary increases.

NHRP709 Mass Salary Increase Exception Report
This report identifies employees who will not receive an automatic General Salary Increase. Fields on the report include EmplID, Employee Record Number, Employee Name, Grade, Bargaining Unit, Pay Basis Code, Part-time Percentage and Salary. The agency must reconcile the employee's Job and/or Position information so that automatic processing can occur. If Job and Position are to remain mismatched a Pay Change must be submitted to increase the employee’s salary. The report identifies the reason the employee’s salary will not be increased with one of the following messages:

• Salary Below Minimum
• Position and Job do not match

The following Control-D reports will be available after the processing of the automatic increases and the review of additional Job Request transactions have been completed:

NHRP703 Mass Salary Additional Pay Report
This report identifies all employees receiving an automatic increase for Location Pay (LOC) or Location Pay Mid-Hudson (LMH). Fields on this report include EmplID, Employee Record Number, Employee Name, Earn Code, Grade, Salary Plan, Bargaining Unit and Additional Pay Amount.

NHRP704 Mass Salary Payment Report
This report identifies all employees who received the General Salary Increase. The report identifies the employee’s last salary that 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.

NHRP709 Mass Salary Increase Exception Report
This report identifies employees who did not receive an automatic General Salary Increase. Fields on the report include EmplID, Employee Record Number, Employee Name, Grade, Bargaining Unit, Pay Basis Code, Part-time Percentage and FTA Salary. The report identifies the reason the employee’s salary was not increased with one of the following messages:

• Salary Below Minimum
• Position and Job do not match

Questions

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