FAQ - Administrators

I have a new GTA beginning in January that will be setup as biweekly paid employees, what should I use as the effective date on the hire ePAF?
You should appoint them on the first day of the first pay period of the spring Academic Payroll Calendar. That would be 12/30/23. If a GTA were inadvertently hired effective 01/01/24, that would also work for this year only because 01/01/24 is the first worked day of the pay period (Monday).

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 (or 20 pay periods if 9-month paid over 9-months) in the year to calculate their biweekly pay.

How does this affect my OU departmental budget?
This change should not impact your budget as the salary expenses for FY24 will be neutral. If an employee elects to receive a leave payout, the cash paid by the university to the employee will be equal to the traditional monthly schedule by fiscal year end.

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.

Will the employees who take the leave payout be on vacation the last part of April 2024? Won't this cause a problem in departments if we're all out of the office at the same time?
No, employees will not actually take the leave they request for the payout. If employees elect to receive a bridge payment on May 3rd, they are getting the leave paid out to them on a paycheck instead of using the leave to be out of the office.

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 12-month employees transitioning in April, if you have additional federal and/or state withholdings as of April 2024, you will need to go into Self Service (Payroll-Tax Withholding) between April 20, 2024 and May 3, 2024 and update the amount to reflect the remaining 17 biweekly paychecks (or 18 if you want to include your bridge payment), instead of the 8 remaining months of withholding. 
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. 

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