State Agencies Bulletin No. 1968

Subject
2022 State Employees Federated Appeal (SEFA) Campaign
Date Issued
December 1, 2021

Purpose

The purpose of this bulletin is to provide instructions for processing payroll deductions for the SEFA Campaign for the 2022 calendar year.

Affected Employees

All employees are affected.

Effective Dates

Payroll deductions for the 2022 SEFA Campaign will begin January 5, 2022 for Administration paychecks and January 13, 2022 for Institution paychecks.

SEFA Campaign Guidelines

The pre-printed Federated Community Campaign (FCC) Code, which appears on the authorization card, must be used as the Deduction Code. Cards that have been modified must be returned to the employee for completion of a new card.

The amount of the deduction requested on the authorization card is the amount to be deducted from each paycheck in the calendar year, not the total amount of the pledge.

State agencies cannot accept cash for the SEFA Campaigns. Checks made out to SEFA will be accepted.

Enrollment

There are two ways to enroll in the 2022 SEFA Campaign:

  1. Online Enrollment can be utilized for employees wishing to donate to any FCC code. Employees are encouraged to pledge online by visiting www.sefanys.org. Online enrollment must be completed by December 20, 2021 to ensure it will be entered for the first paycheck of 2022.
  2. Paper Pledge Cards are available for employees without computer access, or who choose not to use the online enrollment process. These forms are available at agency payroll offices.

OSC Actions

OSC will end date all SEFA deductions that currently have no end date, or an end date that is not valid.

OSC will process the electronic files received from the vendors to add a row to the employee’s general deduction record. An error report of transactions not processed will be sent to the vendor.

Agency Actions

Business Services Center Hosted Agencies (BSC)

The BSC will provide specific instructions for processing the SEFA pledge cards to agencies they service.

Non-BSC Hosted Agencies

Regarding employees not enrolling online:

  1. Agencies must review the completed authorization card and verify the completeness, accuracy, and legibility of the FCC Code, Payroll Deduction, Employee’s Department ID, Employee’s NYS EMPLID, and Name.
  2. Agencies are required to enter 2022 SEFA transactions into PayServ on the General Deduction Data page, using the following instructions:
    1. After logging into PayServ, navigate to General Deduction Data (Main Menu > Payroll for North America > Employee Pay Data USA > Deductions > General Deduction Data).
    2. Enter the NYS EMPLID from the authorization card in the Empl ID field of the dialog box and click Search.
    3. The employee’s General Deduction Data page appears.
    4. Select View All.
    5. Determine whether the employee already has a deduction record for the specific FCC Code on the authorization card by scrolling through the Deduction Codes.
    6. If a record with the same FCC Code exists, add a new row in the Deduction Details page, insert a row and continue with Step 5.
  3. If there is not an existing row for the FCC Code, add a new row in the General Deduction page, and continue to Step 4.
  4. Enter the Deduction Code (FCC Code) indicated on the SEFA authorization card.
  5. Enter the effective date for the 2022 deduction to begin as follows:
Administration Lag 12/09/2021
Current 12/23/2021
Extra Lag 12/02/2021
Institution Lag 12/16/2021
Current 12/30/2021
Extra Lag 12/09/2021
  1. Deduction Calculation Routine – Select Flat Amount from the drop-down box.
  2. Deduction End Date – An end date must be entered. Effective in the first paycheck of 2022, OSC will end date all SEFA deductions with no end date or an end date that is not valid. Therefore, it is imperative that agencies use the end dates listed below:
Administration Lag 12/08/2022
Current 12/22/2022
Extra Lag 12/01/2022
Institution Lag 12/15/2022
Current 12/29/2022
Extra Lag 12/08/2022
  1. Flat/Addl. Amount – Enter the amount to be deducted from each biweekly paycheck, not the total amount to be deducted for the campaign.
  2. Save the transaction.
  3. The Goal Amount field should not be used when entering SEFA transactions (see Exception below).

If an employee has a Goal Amount/Goal Balance in the existing record and the agency enters a transaction for 2022, the Goal Amount and Goal Balance will roll up on the newly inserted row unless the Goal Amount and Goal Balance are equal. Agencies must delete the Goal Amount and Goal Balance on the 2022 row and then save the transaction.

Exception: If a participant chooses to elect other than the full year (26 pay periods), the agency must enter the total amount of the annual contribution in the Goal Amount field as well as the flat amount to be deducted biweekly. The appropriate effective and end dates must still be used.

SEFA FCC Codes

The FCC Listing is available in numeric and alphabetic order.

Changes

Employees who want to change a SEFA deduction may do so by completing a new authorization card; there is no online option available to employees to enact changes. A PayServ General Deduction transaction should then be processed to change the deduction.

Transfers

OSC automatically continues SEFA deductions upon an employee’s transfer from one agency to another within the same payroll record. When an employee transfers, it is necessary to obtain a new authorization card only if the employee wants to contribute to a different SEFA organization in the new agency.

Cancellations

To cancel a SEFA deduction, the agency must insert a new row using the beginning date of the pay period in which the deduction should be canceled as the Effective Date and Deduction End Date. Cancellation notices must be retained by the agency.

Questions

Questions concerning the online enrollment process for SEFA deductions, may be directed to the Statewide SEFA Council at (518)-782-SEFA (7332) or http://www.sefanys.org/contact-us.­­­­

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