Migration to One Payroll 2022 FAQ

Yes. In January 2022, NEIU will move all employees to a single payroll. This change will convert the anticipated pay for exempt employees to delayed pay.

This change will result in a defined work period that is the same for all University employees. In addition, a single payroll creates organizational efficiencies for processing payroll.

For exempt employees, the payroll schedule change will include a delayed pay to coincide with the biweekly payroll schedule.

Exempt employees include all Administrative and Professional (A&P), Academic Support and Professional (ASP), Resource Professional (RP), Tenured Track Faculty (TP), Instructors, Adjunct Faculty, Civil Service exempt (negotiated and non-negotiated), and Graduate Assistants.

There will be no change.

Please view the 2022 Payroll Calendar.

There will be 26 pay periods in 2022.

There are 24 pay periods in 2021.

The first pay date will be Jan. 7, 2022. However, exempt employees should take special note that the Jan. 7 date is for the transition paycheck. There are two options available to assist in easing this transition for the Jan. 7 pay date: You may opt out of receiving a paycheck on Jan. 7 or you may elect transition pay. In addition, you may also elect to receive 37.5 hours of transition pay for the Jan. 21, 2022, pay date as this pay date covers only work dates Jan. 1-8, 2022.

Transition pay is an advance on regular pay or the use of available vacation time, which NEIU is providing to minimize the impact of the change (semimonthly anticipated to biweekly delayed payroll).

• Transition Pay can be elected for up to three weeks and can be any combination of advance pay and/or vacation pay.
• Employees are limited to two weeks (75 hours) on the Jan. 7 paycheck and up to one week (37.5 hours) on the Jan. 21 paycheck. This can be an advance on regular pay or eligible employees can use their available vacation time and reduce their leave balance.
• Employees can also elect to opt out of receiving transition pay. Please note that if you do not elect transition pay you will automatically be opted out.
• Repayment of advance on regular pay will begin on April 1, 2022, pay date and will be repaid in 20 pay periods; the full amount of transition pay hours must be paid back by Dec. 23, 2022, upon separation of employment or end of active assignment, whichever occurs first.

No payment is required, but vacation time is “spent” by using it for transition pay.

Repayment of the advance on regular pay must be paid back by the end of active assignment, or upon separation of employment, which means that if you are a nine-month employee and paid over nine months, the balance of your advance will be taken from your final check or checks.

To participate in Transition Pay, please navigate to your Transition Pay Election Form.

Yes, Please follow the steps below:

1. Navigate to https://neiuport.neiu.edu/
2. Login to NEIUport
3. Select "Employee"
4. Navigate to Employee Details and select "Job Details"
5. Select "Employee" from the top menu
6. Select "Transition Pay Election Form"

An email confirmation will be sent to you with your elections. 

Employees may make changes as many times as they want until Dec. 15, 2021. 

Employees eligible for Transition Pay must elect to take transition pay by Dec. 15, 2021.

If there is no election by Dec.15, 2021, the employee will be opted out and will receive a partial paycheck on Jan. 21, 2022.

Payments to CMS for health insurance shall be amortized and repaid over the four pay periods of Feb. 4, Feb. 18, March 4 and March 18, 2022.

There will be no change to these premiums because the total number of deductions a year in the delayed payroll is also 24. Please note that with other voluntary deductions such as tax sheltered annuities, you may want to consider changing the amount you are contributing every pay period because your gross pay each pay period in the delayed payroll will be slightly less.

The taxes will be based on 26 pay periods a year. Garnishments will be handled on a case-by-case basis.

Timesheets/Leave Reports will still be required for exempt employees. However, they will only be required to be submitted once per month within five to seven days after the end of each month. Timesheet/Leave reports include fields to track time off as well as time worked for the reasons outlined below.  

Below are four major reasons for tracking of time:

1. The State Officials and Employee Ethics Act of Illinois requires state employees to periodically submit records of time worked documenting the time spent each day on official state business.
2. Time records provide your supervisor with accurate accounting of how many hours are being worked.
3. If an employee overlaps between departments, the time records provides an internal accounting for budgetary purposes.
4. In cases where a leave of absence is requested, such as Family Medical Leave, eligibility requirements must be met by demonstrating that the regulatory minimum number of hours have been worked. This is calculated by evaluating the time records.

Employees on 4.5 month assignments for both Fall 2021 and Spring 2022, with the Spring assignment approved by the contractual deadline of Dec. 7, 2021, will have transition pay available to them. New or late contract assignments for Spring 2022, will be paid according to the 2022 biweekly payroll calendar and their contract start date.

Yes, employees should always record actual hours worked.

An excellent no-cost resource available to all employees can be found at paycheckcity.com. Please select Illinois for the state, enter your gross pay, the pay frequency of biweekly and any deductions that you have elected. 

That is correct. To calculate the amount owed to a faculty member who has already been paid a
portion of their annual amount under the semi-monthly system through 12/31/22, there are 17 pay
dates remaining in the contract (January 1, 2022 – August 15, 2022), covering pay dates 01/17/22-
09/02/2022.

To minimize the impact of the transition from 26 pays to 24 pays per year, a decision was made to equalize those on deferred pay resulting in equal payments through the end of the contract. This is not an advance of pay and is the result of ensuring those on deferred pay are paid in full.

Transition Hours result in Advance Pay which is an interest free loan. The University offered this option to ease the financial burden to employees.

Advance Pay was chosen through the website by each employee who elected “Transition hours” and
shows on the check stub with code ADV. To calculate the dollar amount, the hourly rate on the
December 31, 2021 job assignment was multiplied by the number of hours elected for Transition Hours.

Salaried employees are not paid by the hour but we needed to calculate the hourly rate in order to
calculate a value on the advance pay.

For those on deferred pay, the calculation is different to ensure that those on deferred pay are paid full.
To calculate the dollar amount, the annual salary divided by 18, then divided by 81.25 resulting in an
hourly rate. 81.25 is based on the semi-monthly calendar with a 37.5-hour workweek. 1950/24 = 81.25

For example, if you earn $100,000 per year divided by 18 pay periods for a 9-month contract, this makes
the amount per pay $5,555.56. Divide this by 81.25 hours in a semi-monthly pay period and the
resulting hourly rate is $68.38.

Employees are paid 2 weeks after the end of the pay period, example pay period 2/6/2022-2/19/2022 pay date 03/04/2022. The delay is to ensure sufficient review to properly pay all employees on a bi-
weekly schedule.

Please send questions to payrollfeedback@neiu.edu or call (773) 442-5200.