The Empire Plan is a unique health insurance plan designed especially for public employees in New York State. Empire Plan benefits include inpatient and outpatient hospital coverage, medical/surgical coverage, Centers of Excellence for transplants, infertility and cancer, home care services, equipment and supplies, mental health and substance abuse coverage and prescription drug coverage.
KATHY HOCHUL
Governor
REBECCA A. CORSO
Acting Commissioner
NY21-24
TO: NYS Health Benefits Administrators
FROM: Employee Benefits Division
SUBJECT: UPDATE: Retroactive Sick Leave Adjustment – Additional Salary Factors
DATE: September 15, 2021
On August 19, 2021, the Employee Benefits Division (EBD) conducted an online training webinar instructing HBAs on how to process retiree sick leave credit adjustments using the “Retroactive Sick Leave Adj” worklist in NYBEAS. Training materials, including PowerPoint slides, video, and Q&A, were published in memo NY21-23. You are encouraged to view those training materials if you have not already.
During the training, many Health Benefit Administrators (HBA) asked which additional salary factors should be included as part of an employee’s salary when calculating sick leave credit, such as longevity payments, hazard pay, and location pay. The Employee Benefits Division (EBD) has researched this issue with the assistance of the Office of the State Comptroller (OSC), the State’s payroll administrator.
Enclosed with this memo is a full listing of all additional constant salary factors which should be included as part of an employee’s regular salary when calculating their retiree sick leave credit. In the listing you will see two columns, one for the salary factors which are already incorporated into an employee’s pay rate on their payroll check and one for additional factors which are not included as part of the pay rate. While the majority of additional factors are already included as part of the employee’s pay rate, those factors that are not included should be manually added to an employee’s salary when calculating their sick leave credit.
EBD has extended the deadline to complete these transactions to September 28, 2021. You must complete your agency’s retroactive sick leave adjustments by the deadline.
If you have questions regarding the information presented in the video, please call the HBA Helpline at (518) 474-2780.