Payroll Update 18 August 2022

News for School Payroll Staff


 

Kia ora koutou

  • Final pay owing for some employees
  • ACC processing backlog

Reminders from the Ministry of Education

  • Administration support staff in schools pay equity claim
  • KiwiSaver remediation and loss-of-investment-earnings compensation
  • Additional relief funding extension and process change

Final pay owing for some employees

Throughout 2021 EPL updated you on an issue that occurred relating to some employees’ jobs not being correctly finalised and final pay not being calculated in the payroll system when their employment in that job ended. EPL and the Ministry of Education have remediated a number of affected current employees and the Ministry will remediate affected former employees starting from mid-August 2022. 

What do you need to do?

There is nothing you need to do. The Ministry will contact affected former employees to make arrangements for payment of money owed to them.

Where will this payment be funded from? 

The Ministry has agreed to absorb the cost of this remediation on behalf of schools. Payments will appear and then be reversed on your SUE report – this will show that no cost is incurred by your school and is for auditing purposes. When the former employee is paid, the payment will not show on your SUE report.
 
For more information click here: https://www.education.govt.nz/our-work/changes-in-education/final-pay-when-ending-a-job


ACC processing backlog

The ACC team is working hard to reduce their ticket and processing backlog. If you are concerned about staff getting overpaid due to having no sick leave balance, you can book SLWOP (sick leave without pay) via EdPay, which we then reverse and re-book as ACCWO.

We are working through the outstanding queue and tickets from oldest to newest, regardless of who has sick leave and who hasn’t. We do it this way because prioritising people who have no sick leave left would mean other work remains in the queue and is not processed. This runs the risk of people not getting any money at all or being paid by both ACC and the school which creates an overpayment. Working based on order of tickets received means we guarantee the same service level for every request we receive. Please remember to reply to emails directly, rather than sending new emails, as new emails create duplicate tickets that slow us down significantly.


Reminders from the Ministry of Education

Administration support staff in schools pay equity claim

On 4 July 2022 the Ministry of Education reached agreement with NZEI Te Riu Roa on a settlement of the pay equity claim for school administration support staff. There is now guidance available to help you understand and implement the changes resulting from the settlement.

The guidance documents include information on the: 

  • ongoing pay equity funding from the Ministry
  • guidance on how to use the new work matrix
  • information on employees translating from the old pay rates to the new pay rates
  • guidance on pay equity regrading.

See the Ministry’s website for more information: Administration support staff in schools pay equity claim – Education in New Zealand

KiwiSaver remediation and loss-of-investment-earnings compensation

Recently we commenced remediation payments to some current and former school employees who received incorrect employer contributions to their KiwiSaver account because of payroll errors made between 22 August 2012 and 17 November 2021. 
 
Several schools have reported staff raising concerns about the validity of these remediation emails. A school has also reported a third party has attempted to scam an employee via text and email. This may have been in relation to the remediation emails that have been distributed or coincidentally with another scam text about the cost-of-living payments that is currently in circulation.
 
We can confirm this is a legitimate Ministry remediation project and around 50,000 current and former school employees will be receiving a remediation payment. At no point during this process will we ask for an affected employee’s bank account, log in or password.
 
For more information on KiwiSaver remediation see the Ministry’s website: KiwiSaver remediation and compensation – Ministry of Education

Additional relief funding extension and process change

Extension of non-teaching staff relief funding

Additional relief teacher funding (ARTF) continues to be available for Term 3 and 4. The process for accessing ARTF has been redesigned for the remainder of this year to make it easier for you to receive reimbursement for the additional costs you may incur. We are anticipating that in Term 3 and Term 4 there will be ongoing high numbers of staff absences due to COVID-19 related absences and other winter illnesses.
 
ARTF for teaching staff will be automatic in Terms 3 and 4

From this term until the end of the year, ARTF will be allocated directly to all schools and kura that have incurred relief teacher costs above their 2022 relief teacher funding.
 
For Terms 3 and 4 in 2022 you will not need to submit claims for ARTF for teaching staff. The Ministry will automatically calculate the relief costs incurred during the year and will top up funding for costs that are in excess of the relief teacher funding provided via your operational grant, less any ARTF already paid in 2022. Schools and kura will be notified of payments. 

Coding of part-time hours

To be eligible for additional relief teacher funding (ARTF) under the new process for Terms 3 and 4, you will need to code your day relief costs to ‘DDR’, for example not ‘PPTAH’, ‘SPTAH’ or ‘APTAH’. DDR indicates that a teacher is being paid as a day reliever (as opposed to additional hours). The distinction is important because the collective agreement requires you to vary a part-time teacher’s hours if they have been paid additional hours for more than four consecutive weeks. In addition, day relievers are entitled to be paid a minimum of two hours per day.

If you incurred day relief costs in the first half of the year that were coded to ‘additional hours’ pay codes PPTAH, SPTAH or APTAH rather than DDR, please contact us at resourcing@education.govt.nz to discuss how we can support you to ensure these hours are taken into account.

The collective agreement requirements around part-time teacher hours must be adhered to and can be found:
 
Primary Teachers Collective Agreement: Clause 3.23 and 3.25 – Ministry of Education
Secondary Teachers' Collective Agreement – Clause 4.4 and 4.5 – Ministry of Education
Area School Teachers' Collective Agreement – Clause 3.26 and 3.27 – Ministry of Education 
 
If you require advice about Collective Agreements please contact NZ School Trustees Association or Te Rununga Nui.
 
ARTF for resource teacher learning and behaviour
 
ARTF for resource teachers learning and behaviour (RTLB), will continue to be available by submitting an ARTF application for Terms 3 and 4. We will provide funding from the first day of absence if the absence is for more than a week and a suitably qualified relief teacher is hired for the whole period of absence.
 
ARTF for jury service
 
ARTF for an absence due to jury service will continue to be delivered automatically. Please ensure you use the correct jury service leave code in the payroll system to receive funding automatically.

Funding extension and criteria update for non-teaching staff 
 
Relief funding for non-teaching staff absences due to COVID-19 has also been extended to Term 3 and Term 4, and the criteria now includes cover for those suffering from long COVID. This will remain an application-based process using the existing additional relief (ARF) process.
 
Additional relief funding: conditions and how to apply – Te Mahau

Full details on how this will work, what the funding is, when the additional payments will begin and what to do about Term 1 and Term 2 ARTF applications is available on the Ministry’s website.
 
Additional relief teacher funding – Ministry of Education

If you have any queries about ARF, please contact our resourcing team at resourcing@education.govt.nz.

Ngā mihi

Education Payroll team