Purpose

The purpose of this bulletin is to notify agencies of the new arrears process for employees enrolled in the Optional Retirement Plan (ORP) or the Voluntary Defined Contribution Plan (VDC).

Affected Employees

Employees who owe arrears for their ORP/VDC plan are affected.

Background

The Office of the State Comptroller is upgrading PayServ to PeopleSoft version 9.2 on March 15, 2021. To reduce customizations, improve processing, and address stakeholder concerns, a variety of changes are planned as part of the upgrade. There will be new arrears deduction codes for employee and employer arrears in PayServ version 9.2. The codes will allow the system to accurately calculate employer arrears, identify which deductions are held in suspense until the employee is vested, and identify which deductions are sent directly to the plan provider after the employee is vested.

Effective Dates

The new deduction codes will be active at Go Live on March 15, 2021.

OSC Actions

OSC will bring forward all existing ORP/VDC arrears deductions into 9.2. At cutover, all 9.1 arrears deductions will be end-dated. OSC will calculate the employee and employer arrears for all active employees and enter the new deductions codes as described below. Arrears deductions for terminated employees will not be calculated. OSC will enter general comments for terminated employees stating the 9.1 arrears deduction was not met and arrears should be recalculated and entered upon rehire.

OSC has created the 13 new arrears deduction codes below. The deductions are broken down by plan (SUNY, CUNY, VDC), suspense status (suspense or participating), and funding source (employee or employer).

OSC has created a worksheet to assist agencies in calculating pensionable earnings for employees who owe arrears. OSC will create new Locked Queries to assist in calculating pensionable earnings after go live.

Agency Actions

Agencies must calculate and enter the employee and employer arrears deductions whenever they add a new election for ORP/VDC to the saving plan page with an election date in a prior pay period. Arrears must also be calculated upon rehire for any employees that had active arrears in 9.1 and were terminated at cutover.

Arrears Worksheet

Agencies should follow the instructions below to use the Arrears Worksheet to identify the correct deduction codes for the employee’s plan, calculate the correct employee and employer arrears contributions, and enter the arrears information in PayServ.

1. Open the Arrears Worksheet.
2. Enter the Employee ID.
3. Enter the Employee Record number.
4. Select the Current Benefit Plan. This should be the current ORP/VDC Benefit Plan from the employee’s Savings Plan page. This will identify the correct deduction codes to use for the arrears.
5. Enter the employee’s Election Date.
6. Enter the employee’s Current Contribution Rate.
7. Enter the Deduction Pay Periods. This is the number of pay periods (paychecks) the deduction will be taken and cannot exceed the number of pay periods the employee is in arrears.
8. Enter the Arrears Begin Date. This is the pay period begin date of the pay period in which the contributions start. Usually this is the same as the election date.
9. Enter the Arrears End Date. This is the pay period end date of the last pay period the employee had no contributions taken.
10. Enter the Arrears Benefit Plan. This is the Benefit Plan the employee should have been enrolled in when the contributions were missed.
11. Enter the Arrears EE Contribution %. This is the employee contribution rate when the contributions were missed.
12. Use the optional bottom section of the Arrears Worksheet to calculate the total pensionable earnings.
    1. Enter the Check Date Owed. This is the check date the arrears are owed for.
    2. Enter the Pensionable Earnings for each Check Date. This can be found in Review Paycheck under the Special Accumulator 100 earnings for each check.
    3. Repeat steps 12.1 and 12.2 for each check date the employee owes arrears.
    4. Enter the Total Pensionable Earnings from row 14 into the Total Pensionable Earnings Field.
13. Save your Arrears Worksheet. If OSC has any questions on your calculations they will contact you.
14. Log in to PayServ.
15. Navigate to General Deduction Data (Main Menu> Payroll for North America > Employee Pay Data USA > Deductions > General Deduction Data).
16. Enter the Employee ID (Empl ID).
17. Select the correct Employee Record.
18. Enter the Employee Arrears deduction using the data from the Arrears Worksheet.
    1. Enter the employee arrears deduction code.
    2. Enter the current pay period pay begin date as the effective date.
    3. Enter the deduction/flat amount.
    4. Enter the total owed/goal amount.
19. Enter the Employer Arrears deduction using the data from the Arrears Worksheet.
    1. Enter the employer arrears deduction code.
    2. Enter the current pay period pay begin date as the effective date.
    3. Enter the deduction/flat amount.
    4. Enter the total owed/goal amount.
20. Save your transaction.

Questions

Questions regarding this bulletin may be directed to the Payroll Retirement mailbox. Please reference Bulletin PIP-014 in the Subject line of the email.