Frequently Asked Questions

Will monthly employees be paid hourly?
No, salaried employees will still be paid a set amount not determined by hours entered on their timesheet. Salaried employees will take their annual salary divided by 26* pay periods in the year to calculate their biweekly pay. *9 paid in 9 employees will take their annual salary divided by 20 pay periods in the academic (9-month contract period) to calculate their biweekly rate.

I’m going to need help figuring out my personal finances/budget, is there someone who can help me?
Yes, Magellan (our Employee Assistance Program) will host financial planning workshops and provide additional financial planning resources.

What should I do, as an employee, to prepare for this change?
Make sure you’re familiar with the new payday schedule and the employee resources on our website. If you have questions attend a town hall presentation and/or email us at paydaychange@ou.edu. You should verify when your bills are due/when auto-drafts are made and make any changes necessary to your bill pay schedule. Review your personal finances and make any updates to account for this pay frequency change. 

My biweekly rate is less than 1/2 of my monthly paycheck. Why?
There are 26* biweekly pay periods during the calendar year, which results in ten months having two biweekly paychecks and two months with three paychecks. To calculate your gross biweekly paycheck amount you would take your annual salary and divide by 26. So, as an example if your annual salary is $50k (monthly gross paycheck is $4166.67), your biweekly paycheck would be $1923.08. For months that have two biweekly paychecks you would receive $3846.15. For months that have three biweekly paychecks you would receive $5769.23. *If you are a 9-paid-in-9 faculty, you would take your annual salary divided by 20 pay periods.

Do I have less money per month on the biweekly schedule?
The amount of pay you have on any given date may be different on the new schedule, but it is not necessarily less. Because you will be paid more frequently on a biweekly schedule, there are actually ~329 days out of the year that you will have more of your pay in your possession under the biweekly schedule than the monthly schedule.

Why are we transitioning to biweekly instead of semi-monthly in which we could be paid on the 1^st and 15^th?
More than half of OU employees are already on a biweekly schedule, this includes all hourly paid employees on Norman campus as well as all HSC employees. Moreover, the State of Oklahoma does not offer a semi-monthly payroll schedule option.

I have additional tax withholdings taken out of my paychecks, is there anything I need to do to update this when I start getting paid biweekly instead of monthly?
For 9-month employees transitioning in August (includes 9/9 and 9/12), if you have additional federal and/or state withholdings as of August 2024, you will need to go into Self Service (Payroll-Tax Withholding) between August 10, 2024 and August 23, 2024 and update the amount to reflect the remaining 9 biweekly paychecks, instead of the number of months of withholding. 

I usually pay myself summer salary on my grant. How will that look going forward?
Summer salary will be process via monthly payroll (as usual) through summer 2024. Beginning in summer 2025, summer salary will be paid on the new biweekly schedule. Your biweekly rate for the summer is different than it is for the academic year. To calculate your biweekly summer rate you will take 1/3 of your annual salary and then divide by 6 (number of summer pay periods). Calculators will be available on the Payroll Office’s website.

Is there a tool I can use to see what my paycheck will look like when I transition to being paid biweekly?
Yes, you can use salary calculators like what is provided by PaycheckCity: https://www.paycheckcity.com/calculator

For questions about the transition to biweekly payroll please email us at paydaychange@ou.edu.