OMB Centralized Payroll

Transcription

1 OMB Centralized Payroll Centralized Payroll Mission Statement To pay the salaries of all State of New Jersey employees for time worked, accurately and in a timely manner through biweekly Regular and Supplemental Payroll systems. In addition, it is the responsibility of Centralized Payroll to provide accurate financial data to the various state and other regulatory agencies concerning salary expenditures, and to comply will all governmental and contractual regulations pertaining to the payroll function. The expeditious processing of all payroll related actions, health benefit enrollments, and employee designated deductions is also a primary responsibility. Responsibilities Issuance of Payroll Checks There are approximately 80,000 state employees paid on the regular biweekly payroll, with gross wages around $140 million. Of the total paid employees approximately 75,000 are full time and 5,000 are part time. The State offers direct deposit on the regular biweekly payroll and 65% of the workforce elected this payment method. The supplemental payroll is made on the off week between regular payrolls. The supplemental payroll averages $10 million to approximately 16,000 employees. Supplement payrolls normally represent payments relative to overtime, retroactive salary increases, lump sum vacation and sick payments, etc. On average the State issues 100,000 W-2s annually. Responsibilities Payroll Deductions There are 38 different types of deductions allowable from State employees regular pay checks including federal and state taxes (7 different states), pension-related deductions, deferred compensation, health benefit plan deductions, U.S. Savings bonds, charitable campaign contributions, garnishments, child support, student loan defaults, credit union and union dues deductions, and a college savings program. State employees are also offered the opportunity to participate in tax savings programs under Section 125 of the IRS code for unreimbursed medical, dependent care, and long term care options. A transportation tax saving program under Section 132 has recently been implemented. Centralized Payroll is directly responsible for the management of the health benefit prepayment process. This process allows employees in inactive pay status to continue coverage under the State Health Benefits Program. Dependent upon the reason for which leave status has been granted, the employee may continue coverage by paying only the employee premium for a specified time period. However, some types of leave may be extended beyond this time frame and require payment of both the employee and employer premium to maintain coverage. Should an employee return to active pay status prior to the period a prepayment covers, a refund is processed to reimburse the employee. Responsibilities Payroll Reporting Centralized Payroll is responsible for the monthly, quarterly, and annual reporting to wages, taxes withheld, and adjustments to the federal government, and to nine states, including New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The Division of Pensions and Benefits receives quarterly data pertaining to all pension- related deductions. All other payroll-related deductions such as union dues, credit union, garnishment, child support, etc. have either weekly or biweekly reports in electronic/paper format relating to the deductions withheld for that period. In addition to biweekly payroll reporting to the State Departments, Centralized Payroll provides ad hoc reports to the Governor s Office of Labor Relations for use in negotiations with nine unions for the Executive Branch and seven unions for the Judiciary. Page 1 of 10 Pages

2 Centralized Payroll assists in determining the estimated cost of negotiated contract salary and other costs (clothing allowance, retroactive salary, leave time payments, etc.) for budget projections. Organizational Structure of Centralized Payroll Centralized Payroll falls under Financial Management in the Office of Management and Budget, Department of the Treasury. Staff consists of 28 full time employees and is supported by seven full time programmer/analysts in the Office of Information Technology. Centralized Payroll is comprised of three units, 1)Payroll Audit, 2)Data Entry and 3)Accounting and Employee Benefits. Centralized Payroll Systems/Processing Overview Departments submit pay time through time reporting systems which interface with the payroll system or hard copy payroll proofs. All payroll checks for the State Departments, Judiciary, and certain offices of the Legislature are issued by Centralized Payroll. Legislative payrolls that are processed by staff of the Legislative are subsequently updated in the master payroll files maintained by Centralized Payroll. The first part of the Regular process consists of taking all personnel transactions such as new hires, promotions, demotions, tax withholding changes, name changes, etc. and processing them through the Payroll update process. This updates the payroll master file with the necessary changes needed to process the upcoming pay period correctly. The Regular payroll then processes all regular paytime, overtime, vision care, one time payments (bonuses), clothing allowances, and some retroactive payments. The process consists of calculating a gross pay amount, deducting the appropriate taxes, mandatory and voluntary deductions and producing a paycheck or EFT pay stub. Employees with direct deposit (EFT) have their net pay automatically transmitted to the clearinghouse bank through the telephone lines. The employee records than get posted to the payroll file with updated year to date information and files are created that pass to the New Jersey Comprehensive Financial System (NJCFS) and outside agencies such as health carriers, other departments, etc. The Supplemental payroll process is a secondary system that handles payments such as overtime, lump sum amounts, unused sick leave and vacation pay, etc. The system is transaction based and any payment must have a corresponding transaction associated with it. The system is fed overtime for certain payrolls automatically from the previous Regular pay. Gross pay, deductions, taxes and year to date figures are all posted to the payroll master file the same as the Regular payroll. On a quarterly basis, OMB files IRS forms 941 and 941C that include accumulated wages, tax deductions and other adjustments. A quarterly file is supplied to Pensions to provide payroll deduction information on loans, arrears, back payments, supplemental annuity and tax sheltered annuity for each employee based on pension code. The Office of Employee Relations receives reports based on bargaining units. Also, the fringe benefit salary accounts are posted to the NJCFS system. Calendar year end processing zeros all state employee year to date dollar amounts on the payroll file. Employees that had no earnings for the year are purged from the file and the year to date figures are balanced. Life insurance and taxable vehicle fringe benefit processing take place at the end of the year to adjust FICA and year to date gross figures accordingly. W2 processing creates year to date forms for all state employees who had earnings for the calendar year, creates files for the State of NJ, State of PA and the federal government, and supplies data to the Centralized Payroll duplicate W-2 system. Fiscal Year End processing segregates the salary costs for each fiscal year. Files are created that will post old and new salary accounts to the NJCFS system. Mergers and consolidations between departments occur and layoffs are often processed. A salary package occurs when contracts for bargaining units have been signed and an agreement for salary increases or other compensation was stipulated in the contract. The process consists of OMB Centralized Payroll updating salary tables for all bargaining units affected and programs are run to update employee Page 2 of 10 Pages

3 records with the new salary information. Retroactive payments may also be processed if the contract deemed necessary. Centralized Payroll System Interfaces Keyfast is the online data entry system software employed by Centralized Payroll. It is used as the input source for the majority of payroll-related information, including the submission of regular and supplemental payrolls. The Time and Leave Reporting System (TALRS) is a fully automated on-line method of recording and tracking the attendance and overtime of an employee. Attendance is entered on an exception basis and can be recorded down to a half-hour increment. Designated management personnel have the ability to inquire into an employee's record through their terminal. Several management statistical reports are produced for the monitoring and control of absenteeism. Time sheet turnaround documents are produced as well as many types of control and security reports. The employee also receives a monthly verification report showing absences and year-to-date balances for sick, vacation and administrative leave. A major feature of the system is the payroll support provided through an automated interface to the payroll system. The Judiciary Time Reporting System (JHRIS Judiciary Human Resource Information System) is the paytime reporting system utilized by the Administrative Office of the Courts and the County Court Vicinages. Agency personnel key paytime, overtime, contractual payments, and changes to static fields such as unit, check distribution codes online. The keying of this data is exception based. This information, together with certifications is then submitted to OIT for inclusion with other agency payrolls for processing. The PMIS interface is a bridge between the Department of Personnel and the Payroll/Position Monitoring systems. The interface takes transactions keyed into the Personnel system and formats them for processing into the Payroll and Position Monitoring systems. The transactions can be new hires, terminations, lateral changes, mass account number changes and fiscal year end changes. The transactions are processed on a nightly basis and reports are printed for Centralized Payroll to review and correct if necessary. The Health Benefits system interfaces with the Division of Pensions to process health, dental and prescription drug changes through the Payroll system. Pensions supplies drug and health information and Payroll creates the prescription drug transactions for editing into the Payroll system. Once edits are completed and errors are corrected the transactions are processed to update the Payroll Master file. Once a year an open enrollment occurs which allows State employees the opportunity to change plans or coverage. The open enrollment period lasts approximately 30 days and when completed, new rates and premiums become effective. Changes for items determined to be change of life can be made at any time. The Bond system is used to process state employee bond deductions, create files for the federal reserve and update bond balances and bond information. The system uses a DMS system to key in bond data, which is passed to the payroll system for update. The information is then used to update the bond owner file, which has employee and beneficiary information. Page 3 of 10 Pages

4 Department of Personnel Department of Personnel Mission Statement The mission of the Department of Personnel is to develop and administer an effective and comprehensive personnel system for both local government and the State. The system is based on merit and sound management principles, which fosters the objectives of government, ensures equitable treatment of employees, and serves the best interest of the public. This includes human resource management services in the areas of recruitment, selection, placement classification, compensation, training, time management, and dispute resolution. The Department of Personnel maintains the State s Civil Service rules-based employee management system that covers many of the same individuals as DPB. These include employees of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial Branches of State Government and those employees of County and Municipal governments who have adopted the Merit System. Personnel Management Personnel Management Information System (PMIS) is a transaction-driven, on-line system designed to facilitate the creation and subsequent maintenance of personnel and position transactions generated on behalf of New Jersey state employees. Online transactions are entered by the Appointing Authority through terminal screens and subsequently system-edited. Upon passing various edits, they are then automatically approved by PMIS or reviewed online by the DOP PMIS Operations personnel where they are either approved and used to update various files, or they are rejected and returned to the Appointing Authority for correction or recission. The system also has an interface with the Office of Management and Budget s (OMB) Position Control and Centralized Payroll systems. Through these interfaces, PMIS edits for position and account validity and subsequently passes position and payroll related transactions to the respective systems. There are approximately 85,000 active and 99,000 inactive state employees maintained on PMIS. The employee history contains 4,883,180 active and 774,715 inactive records. The Consolidated Employee File (CEF) of state and local employees contains approximately 112,000 active and 203,000 inactive local records. The system has over 1,700 statewide users. Page 4 of 10 Pages

5 Time and Leave Management Time and Leave Reporting System (TALRS) is a menu-driven system that provides an automated on-line method of entering and tracking leave data for full-time employees. Attendance is entered on an exception basis and can be recorded down to the half-hour increment. The following are some features of the system: E mployee balance data is updated as soon as absences are entered, so the information is always current. An employee s detailed absences can be viewed on-line in the form of monthly calendars showing actual absences by day. The ability to page through month by month allows access to entries for the current and the previous years. In addition, this detail calendar, including month-end balances, is printed and distributed to the employee each month for informational and verification purposes. A nother important feature is the assistance the system gives to the payroll staff in preparing the payroll proofs through an automated interface with OMB s Centralized Payroll system. Currently the TALRS master file has approximately 47,000 active employees from 27 appointing authorities, including Treasury, Labor, Personnel, Health, Corrections, Law and Public Safety, Transportation and Judiciary and their vicinages. The system has over 4,800 statewide users. Page 5 of 10 Pages

6 OMB Position Control Position Control Mission Statement Each year the Legislature passes the Appropriation Act which funds agency salary accounts at the minor object level. OMB monitors and manages these accounts and in doing so, becomes directly involved with a large percentage of agency position-related transactions. OMB Position Control (PC) is responsible for ensuring all state agencies adhere to the established guidelines for position utilization. The PC unit within OMB is the owner and primary caretaker of the Position Expenditure File and as such, is responsible for ensuring that salary expenditures can be linked to both salary and non-salary accounts. Each pay period, state agencies salary expenditures are posted to the appropriate account number within the NJCFS system. There are numerous position-related objectives and activities performed throughout the fiscal year that apply to both personnel transactions and salary expenditure processing, control and analysis. These include: 1) supporting the enforcement of the Department of Personnel s classification determinations, 2) monitoring the size and configuration of the State s workforce consistent with State Appropriations Act, 3) maintaining salary expenditure data at the position and account levels for accounting and analytical purposes, and 4) facilitating the processing of the state payroll. The Position Control unit is responsible for supporting these objectives and ensuring the integrity of the data and information involved in the aforementioned activities. Responsibilities Manage and Monitor Agency Positions Position Control and Budget Operations work together with the agencies to manage and monitor agency positions. As the Position Expenditure File links employees to salary accounts and other sources of funding, a variety of initiatives are implemented by Position Control on behalf of Agency, Judiciary and Legislative fiscal and human resource offices. Responsibilities Agency Related Changes The position control activities performed on behalf of the agencies include establishing new positions, changing funding sources, approving position overlaps, extending position expiration dates, and maintaining hourly rates on the position expenditure file for Special Services (temporary) positions. Processing of these changes can be initiated through the submission of transactions on the Personnel Management Information System (PMIS) or by memorandum. Approvals are requested from the assigned Budget Analyst, when necessary, prior to final processing of the request. OLS and Judiciary can circumvent this process when a position is unclassified. In such cases, internal HR units check the internal lists, go through internal reclassification, if necessary, and notify OMB by memorandum of the change. All agencies have internal fiscal units that research and approve position changes before the request is sent to OMB. Agencies can be funded by three sources: State, Federal and special revenues. Grants may contain detailed guidelines or be open for agency interpretation. Grants with restrictive guidelines may determine salaries and/or position requirements. Agency fiscal units manage accounts to ensure position expenditures balance to the appropriation by fiscal year end. The internal process includes, for some agencies, quarterly salary projection reports, projections of revenues and checks on funding programs (i.e., are political trends moving away from funding certain grants, etc.). Page 6 of 10 Pages

7 Responsibilities Budget Related Changes Position Control implements a variety of budgetary initiatives at the direction of Budget Operations, as the position expenditure is the key link of employees to salary accounts and other funding sources. Many of the initiatives are a result of the Governor s annual recommended budget. If agreed upon by the Legislature, the initiatives are implemented through the Appropriations Act. Other initiatives are related to new program implementations or programmatic shifts. One of the functions of the Position Control unit is to create positions as identified by the Appropriations Act or by Budget Operations. The majority of these positions are created during the fiscal year end process, however, they may also be created during the course of the year as new programs are implemented or programmatic shifts occur. Another function of the Position Control unit relating to the budgetary initiatives is to process funding changes to position account numbers or source of funds, including lump sum appropriations. These changes primarily occur in the fiscal year end process, but may occur during the course of a fiscal year as well. In order to implement the budget related initiatives, the Position Control unit will determine the volume of position and payroll related data that needs to be changed. If the volume of transactions is low, the Position Control unit may instruct the agencies to submit personnel transactions to accommodate the changes required by the initiatives. The transactions would then follow the routine processing route of a normal personnel transaction. If the volume of transactions necessary to effectuate the change is large, as is the fiscal year end process, the Position Control unit will submit a data processing work request to OIT to generate a mass change request which will update the applicable systems (usually Position Control, Payroll and DOP PMIS). Responsibilities Fiscal Year End The Fiscal year End process is a critical process for the Position Control unit, since most of the Budget initiatives are implemented during this time. Coordination of the fiscal year end effort among the participating agencies is extremely important. Each year, OMB publishes a Circular Letter that identifies the fiscal year end processes and instructions for State agencies, including the Judiciary and Legislature, to follow for both salary and non-salary related expenditures. This letter serves as a kickoff for the fiscal year end process as many meetings and internal processes are started upon receipt of the letter. Agencies must ensure salary accounts zero balance. OMB sends notices of accounts in deficit to agencies on a payroll to payroll basis. The position control unit will also initiate any other budget changes, such as mergers and consolidations. If a a mass change is required, OMB coordinates activities with appropriate OIT, DOP and agency resources. Responsibilities OMB/DOP Freeze At the request of OMB Budget Operations or the Department of Personnel, the Position Control unit can implement a fiscal freeze (or unfreeze) of positions. A freeze can target an individual position or any of the following: department, account (in whole or part), payroll number, appointing authority, or title. There are a variety of freeze options built into the Position Control system. They type of freeze to be implemented is determined by the requester, or by OMB Budget Operations the freeze type will determine the complement of personnel transactions which will be prohibited. This process is heavily utilized during layoff situations. Once the position is frozen, the position file will carry an indicator which signifies the type of freeze in effect. If an agency attempts to process a personnel transaction involving a frozen position, an error message will display on-line in the DOP PMIS system and the system will not allow a successful update of the action. Personnel transactions that do not impact the freeze, will, however, be allowed to process. Responsibilities Account Number Processing Page 7 of 10 Pages

8 An account validation file, maintained by the Position Control unit, is utilized by the Payroll and Position Control processing systems. The purpose of the file is to ensure that valid Payroll number/account number combinations are maintained. State agencies, including the Judiciary or the Legislature, can initiate via memorandum, a request to add, delete or change an account number. OMB Budget Operation and can also initiate an account number addition or deletion to the file, and must additionally approve any agency requests. Upon Budget and Operations approval of the request, Position Control staff will inform OIT technicians to process the addition or deletion of the account number. Rejected requests are returned to the agency for resolution. Responsibilities Position Abolition State agency fiscal and human resource personnel (including the Judiciary and Legislature), and OMB Budget and Operations may request that positions be abolished. Position Analysis and Reporting The Position Control Analysis and Reporting process is followed for all scheduled and ad-hoc analysis and reporting done within the Position Control unit. The unit is responsible for the production of both regularly scheduled reports and ad-hoc reports for a variety of users, including, but not limited to, the Chief Executive s Office, State Treasurer, Legislators, Executive, Judicial and Legislative agencies, as well as OMB Management. Reports are produced using FOCUS, Excel and OMB production reports. The Position Control Analysis and Reporting process allows users to obtain relevant and timely position related information. Sample reports include: Position Control Statewide Full-Time Employee Target Comparison (bi-weekly) Comparison of current pay period full-time employee counts vs. selected historical pay periods and current fiscal year FTE targets. Full-Time Employee/FTE Target Comparison Comparison of current FTE counts vs. current FY funded positions by department and fund source; data in this report matches data in Statewide Full-Time Employee Target Comparison. Full-Time Employee Counts Current pay period counts by department and funding source with associated payroll expenditures. Report also produced for colleges after collection of their data. Salary Expenditures by Pay Period (bi-weekly) FTE count by pay period beginning with pay period 01 of the current calendar year along with associated payroll expenditures. Human Services Paid Employee Summary Count of all employees paid in Human Services by pay period, by division, across all position types. Includes historical pay period data. New Hires and Termination (Full-Time and Part-Time) (monthly) New hires and terminations for a specific month by department, account number and various employee information. New Hires and Terminations (bi-weekly) Selected summary of new hires and terminations by department and fund including the actual new hires by department, division and title only for those departments with signification increases from previous pay period. New Hires and Terminations (biweekly) Summary of new employee hires and terminations by pay period within a fiscal year and a summary by department up to and including the current pay period. Current Fiscal Year Salary Projections (biweekly) Statewide salary, overtime and Special Services expenditure projections, by department, for the current Fiscal Year. Current Fiscal Year Salary Projections Selected Departments (monthly) Page 8 of 10 Pages

9 Same as report above, except may be presented a t a more specific level of detail such as by division. Employee Counts and FTE Targets Distributed to each department every pay period. Statewide Employee Counts (biweekly) By department, all funds and position types combined. Used by the Department of Labor for various reports. OLS Report Vacant and Budgeted Positions (annually) Report to OLS which shows all vacant budgeted positions (abolish and creates, title reclasses and/or range changes). Budget/Interdepartmental Salary Projection Report Agency Version (annually in August) Used by agencies and OLS to develop future FY salary projections. Excludes salary adjustment projections such as COLA and increments. Salary Projection Report OMB Version Used by Budget staff to develop FY salary projections. This differs from the agency version in that it includes salary adjustment data (e.g., COLA and increment) that is not included in the agency version. Salary Expenditure Report (annually in August) Final position expenditure figures from the previous Fiscal Year Budget Projections/Printer sheets Employee Benefit Accounts and Employee Salary Accounts FY Appropriation Act Employee Benefit Accounts and Employee Salary Accounts Technology Overview The Position Expenditure file is of primary importance to two OMB systems: IPB and Payroll. This file links employees to salary accounts against which expenditures are processed, and identifies how and when positions are encumbered by the employees. In essence, this file turns employee data into position data, changing each employee into a fiscal entity that must be tracked. This file is also of critical importance to the Department of Personnel s Personnel Management Information System (PMIS) which is the primary supplier of the employee data. Automated Interfaces: PMIS to Position Control PMIS transactions are passed to OMB on a daily basis and receive extensive editing (both manual and online). Those that pass all the built-in system edits update through the Position Control and Payroll Systems automatically generating no paper transactions. Those transactions that fail the system edits are printed out for review and updates. The Position Control unit manually reviews all PMIS transactions which fail system edits and upon approval, hand delivers screen printouts to Payroll for final review and processing. Payroll with Position Control System Automated posting of salary expenditures by position. Occurs regardless of any errors flagged. IPB to Position Expenditure File At fiscal year end, transactions are created in the IPB system and automatically passed to the Position Expenditure File in the form of PMIS-like transactions to convert or abolish positions and change account numbers for the new fiscal year. These records are then passed to Payroll and are processed in the Payroll System in the same manner as ordinary PMIS transactions. When Payroll updates, a file is created and passed to PMIS so that all PMIS/Payroll data remains in synch. In addition, a purged Position File is made available to PMIS to accommodate PMIS retroactive transaction processing. An update listing is also prepared for IPB. Account Validation File Changes to the Account Validation File are made when there are organizational changes made in the structure of State government. When a department or organizational sub-unit is created, changed or abolished, changes may need to be made to the Account Validation File. These changes will pass Page 9 of 10 Pages

10 electronically to IPB and automatically affect the payroll system. It also may be necessary to coordinate such changes with NJCFS and the DOP PMIS system. The Position Control System maintains and updates the following files: 1) Account Validation File, 2) Position Expenditure File and 3) Department Target Unit File. Page 10 of 10 Pages