TO: Department and Agency Directors of Human Resources, Personnel and Affirmative Action Officers, Equal Opportunity Specialists, Diversity and Inclusion Specialists The Payroll Certification Schedule for Fiscal Year '25-'26, beginning April 1, 2025, is below. THIS MEMORANDUM AND SCHEDULE REPLACE ADVISORY MEMORANDUM #24-04 ISSUED JUNE 24, 2024, AND ITS ATTACHED SCHEDULE. PLEASE REMOVE ADVISORY MEMORANDUM #24-04 AND SCHEDULE. Agencies must adhere to the deadlines below to achieve on-time payroll certification. See below for additional information on late transaction submittals. PAYROLL DEADLINES The Department of Civil Service requires five working days to process and certify the payroll. Based on the Office of the State Comptroller's (OSC) deadlines, we must establish the normal payroll due date as the Friday prior to the last date of the payroll period. Agencies are required to submit their payroll to this Department by the NYSTEP Transaction Cutoff Date, including coding of substantiating eligible list certifications in ELMS or submission of substantiating paperwork such as S-203's. On the Friday after the end of the payroll period, this Department will certify the payroll to OSC. PROCESS CHANGES FOR LATE TRANSACTION SUBMITTALS We recognize that on rare occasions agencies may need to submit late transactions (e.g., for unexpected returns from leaves). While we will accept transactions that cannot be submitted by the payroll deadline, it is imperative that agencies limit the transactions submitted after the deadline to those that are absolutely necessary due to unforeseeable or unavoidable circumstances. These late transactions must be submitted no later than Tuesday after the DCS Friday payroll deadline to ensure certification to OSC by the following Friday. If a transaction must be submitted late, please provide by email the last four digits of the employee’s social security number, name, action/reason code, and date the transaction was submitted to your Appointment Examiner. Transactions affecting paychecks or pay status will be processed first. To ensure adherence to these deadlines, we will be changing the way we process any new hire/rehire transaction submitted after the Tuesday cutoff. If there is insufficient time to obtain this Department's required approvals before the payroll must be certified, the transaction will be approved with temporary status for one pay period for the purpose of producing a check. The agency must resubmit the original transaction in the next pay period and receive the necessary approvals from this Department in order for the transaction to be approved. Transactions that are not certified to OSC and/or do not affect paychecks will be processed on an "as time allows" basis. Transactions that are not completed by the time the payroll is certified will be held and worked with the agency's next payroll (e.g., change of hold item, change contingent to permanent status). FREEZE WAIVERS/EXEMPTIONS Refer to Budget Bulletin B-1224 (Revised) for the most recent information on the extension of the Statewide Hiring Freeze. REMINDERS OSC uses the "Appointment End Date Report" to determine one category of checks which could be withheld. For each lag ADM/INS pay period, OSC creates a report, which covers two weeks, beginning one day before the start of the pay period and ending one day before the end of the pay period. It then advises agencies that, in the absence of an extension of the employees' end dates, checks for employees will be held. Generating the same report for your agency can alert you to NYSTEP transactions which need to be submitted before OSC notifies you that check(s) may be held. NYSTEP guidelines for early submission of transactions will not be affected by the payroll deadline schedule. Agencies may still submit transactions up to 30 days in advance of the effective date or, in the case of transactions requiring clearance, as soon as a clearance number has been obtained. The PayServ submission schedule is not affected by this notice. Agencies should continue to submit transactions to PayServ based on the submission schedule issued by the Office of the State Comptroller. Questions regarding the implementation of the payroll deadline schedule can be directed to Korynn Holdridge at (518) 473-9950. Please ensure that all members of personnel and payroll staff have copies of this information. DCS AGENCY PAYROLL CERTIFICATION SCHEDULE FY 25 – 26 LAG - Early Payroll deadlines indicated in bold print
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