Short-term relievers minimum payments
Teacher employment agreements state that day relievers must be paid for a minimum of two hours per day if they are employed by a school.
When a timesheet is received for less than two hours (in one or more bookings), the short-term reliever's pay will be topped up to two hours. The Ministry of Education has worked with EPL to implement automatic top-up payments to short-term relievers. These payments appear under the payroll code “DDRUP”.
This top-up payment does not count as service, as it does not reflect hours worked.
Schools should only submit timesheets for the actual hours worked. EdPay automatically adjusts the DDRUP top-up value as per the timesheets submitted for actual hours worked.
The automated process enters a top-up payment where a short-term reliever has worked for less than two hours, per school, per day. This is funded through the original relief booking allocation. If this is from teachers’ salaries, then this will generate banking staffing usage.
The Ministry is looking into the historical impact of this error and will communicate further on these once investigations are completed.
If you have any further questions about this please contact the Ministry of Education on MW.Mailbox@education.govt.nz
Remediation payments in pay period 5 2024
The Ministry of Education is making a remediation payment related to the two-hour minimum entitlement for short-term relief teachers.
Primary, secondary and area school teachers’ collective agreements state that short-term relief teachers will be paid for no less than two hours per day of day relief or paid leave at a school, but this has not always happened.
An improved process was put in place from 10 August 2022 to fix this. Payments are being made to correct errors between 17 April 2012 and 9 August 2022.
Current employees receiving a payment will have it included in their normal pay on 28 May 2024. No additional action is required from employees, principals or administrators to support the payment.
The Ministry aims to start contacting affected former employees later this year.
For more information, see the Ministry website: Two-hour minimum entitlement for short-term relief teachers – Education in New Zealand