Underpayments and Late Retroactive Transaction Submission

Many times, and for many reasons, agencies do not submit transactions to correctly pay the employees in a timely manner. There may be a payroll error or, due to incorrect data in the system, an employee may not be paid correctly. Labor laws and union contracts require that NYS employees are paid within certain time frames for different payments. As often as possible agencies should submit payments within these guidelines. If an agency knows or thinks an employee is underpaid they should process the correct payments as soon as possible.

There are many reasons that transactions are not accurate and on time. For all the reasons that employees can be overpaid, the employee can also be underpaid.

• Promotions are received late from HR
• Approval is late from DOB or Civil Service
• Grievances and settlements are always done retroactively
• Employees do not submit time sheets timely
• There are errors on time sheets
• Contracts are settled late
• Data within PayServ is incorrect preventing automatic payments
• Performance Advance or Promotions are calculated incorrectly

OSC has established guidelines for submission for late retroactive transactions. Generally, dependent upon the transaction, agencies are given 60-100 days to process transactions. But if the transaction is beyond the guideline date, the agency must submit documentation to OSC for approval before the transaction is submitted into PayServ. Payroll errors for salaries can be submitted at any time, but corrections retroactive a year or more must have prior approval by OSC before they are submitted.

Refer to Bulletins

1097 for executive agencies

UCS174 for Court System agencies

C433 for CUNY agencies, for specific procedures

When it is found that the employee is underpaid:

• If it is a salary underpayment, pay changes must be entered in the Job Action Request pages for each effective dated row in job data to increase the salary on each row. A General Comment must be entered.
• If it is a work percentage change, the agency must submit data change requests to change the work percentage for each effective dated row.
• If a historical row must be added to job data to change the employment date, a General Comment and a Data Cor History with an explanation of the issue must be submitted for OSC staff to change the history using correction mode.
• If a historical row must be added to the Additional Pay page to change additional earnings, a General Comment and a Data Cor History with an explanation of the issue must be submitted for OSC staff to change the history using correction mode.
• If a new last effective dated row can be added to either Job Data or Additional page, regardless of the date, the agency must add the row directly to those pages. A General Comment is needed.
• Miscellaneous payments should be put directly on time entry with the correct dates.

When the rows are entered on the Job Data or Additional Pay page, the retro process will automatically adjust the earnings accordingly.

Bureau of State Payroll Services payroll@osc.ny.gov