FY09 Mandatory Training Period Wraps Up

The University of Houston System wrapped up its 2nd annual, system-wide, comprehensive Mandatory Training program. We would like to thank the campus community for their continued support and dedication. 93% of all University of Houston employees (this includes faculty, staff, student workers, and temporary employees paid through the payroll system) completed their state and Board mandated training by the extended deadline date of January 31, 2009.

We would like to encourage employees to continue to complete their training, if they have not yet done so, as the courses will remain available on their UHS Online Professional Development and Training account here through July of this fiscal year. They will not, however, receive recognition for compliance for their post-expiration date completion. According to SAM 02.A.11 and SAM 02.A.26, any employee who did not complete all training by the published deadline date will not have met their job expectations and will therefore not be eligible for a merit increase.

To continue to monitor your area's training, you may run one of the following queries in the PeopleSoft HRMS database:

We greatly appreciate your support of the mandatory training program, and we look forward to working with you next fall.

Should you have any questions, please contact the Human Resources Service Center at 713.743.3988.

ePAR processing – The payroll staff cannot see the ePAR’s in process through workflow. Until the ePAR’s have completed all approvals and have been submitted to the system for update, the payroll staff has no idea what actions are in process or where they are in the approval process. Just because the ePAR has been initiated, the payroll staff will not be aware of it until it is in the system. We cannot process anything until it is actually in the system. As initiators or approvers, you can track your own ePAR’s to determine where they are in the process. We encourage you to notify us of all pending terminating ePAR’s that have not been completed so that we can turn off the payline in order to avoid overpayments, however we can not process any pay for employees that are not in the system, so payroll processing will have to wait until that processing is completed.

Insurance Stipends – Insurance stipends are paid to employees that are active in the system on the 1st of the month. Employees that began their employment on 01/16 are not eligible for the stipend until the first of next month. If employees terminate in the middle of the month, the insurance stipend is NOT pro-rated for ½ month, they receive the entire amount. Please review the distribution of the stipends to make sure that if they are paid by a state fund, the additional pay for the insurance stipend is directed to the pool account. If they are paid by a local fund, the local fund should also pay for the stipend amount every month. If you find that they are not distributing correctly, please contact your payroll administrator for a manual correction going forward on the additional pay panel.

Please send all timesheets and documentation directly to your payroll administrator for immediate receipt when the mail arrives in the payroll office. It saves us a lot of time in separating the volume of documents we receive everyday, and we appreciate your assistance.

If you have any questions, please contact your payroll administrator.

According to The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007, the federal minimum wage is changing to $7.25 per hour effective July 24, 2009. This is the third and final increase of the rollout.

College and Division administrators will receive a list of employees affected by the new minimum wage. HR will update employee pay rates in PeopleSoft to comply with this law. No PARs are necessary.

UH Pay Grade Structures will be adjusted on July 24, 2009 to reflect the new minimum wage. Minimum and first quartile amounts for the lowest pay grade will be adjusted, but the midpoint and maximum for the range will remain the same. Pay ranges with a current minimum above $7.25 per hour will not be affected.

Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is a federal law that governs minimum wage, overtime, child labor and record keeping. All hourly jobs are considered non-exempt from the overtime provisions. This means that hourly employees are eligible for overtime. All jobs that a non-exempt employee has at UH must be paid hourly and all hours worked are part of the overtime rate calculation.

Some jobs are exempt from these requirements. These exempt jobs may include professional, administrative and executive jobs. At UH, these are monthly paid jobs. The Compensation Department reviews each job according to FLSA regulations to determine if the job fits within the allowable exemptions. The first requirement is that employees in an exempt job are paid a monthly salary of at least $1971.66 per month, regardless of FTE. The FLSA does not make allowances for part time exempt employees. There are only three exceptions to the minimum salary for exempt status:

• Faculty. The minimum salary does not apply to faculty jobs that involve academic instruction.
• Exempt Staff Overload. An exempt employee has already met the exemption requirements, and the overload is not reviewed separately.
• Graduate Students. Although graduate students are paid on a monthly basis, the minimum wage of $7.25 per hour applies. Please note that graduate students are eligible for overtime if they work more than 40 hours in a work week.

Recently Dr. Carl Carlucci, Executive Vice President for Administration and Finance, approved the implementation of a new compensation pay structure to be effective March 1, 2009. The HR Compensation department partnered with external consultants to conduct a market study of all UH staff jobs and assign new job grades that correspond to the new pay range structures.

Results 

• Each job was assigned to a grade on the new structure based upon the market value of that job.
• The new pay ranges will be used to guide future planning and administration of staff salaries including new hires, reclassifications, merit increases, and promotions.
• Based on the study and external consultation, the average salaries for jobs at UH are in line with the current market.

The new program also includes a total compensation philosophy which will assist the university in achieving its goal to attract, retain, motivate and reward a highly competent workforce. The total compensation philosophy was developed in coordination with the Compensation Committee representing UH staff from all areas of campus.

How this affects you – Each staff employee in your department will have a new pay grade. The job descriptions and titles stay the same. Less than 1% of employees will require an equity increase because their current salary is below the new pay range minimum. HR Generalists will provide managers with assistance in communicating these changes to the affected employees. Please note that no salary will be decreased as a result of this pay grade restructuring.

During the next few weeks, toolkits will be provided to each business administrator to assist with the transition and public information sessions will be scheduled.

Frequently asked questions (FAQ) and more details regarding the current phase of implementation are available on the HR Website at www.uh.edu/hr/compensation/index.htm

Pre-collection for Faculty & Grad-Students on a 9/9 Pay Cycle

This is a reminder of the upcoming change to all faculty and grad-students on a 9 pay 9 payroll schedule. Due to their current contract pay option during the summer months, health insurance deductions will not be collected. However, in order to ensure continuous health insurance coverage during these months, their health insurance deductions will be pre-collected from their monthly May 1 and June 1, 2009 paychecks. This will allow the university to continue their insurance coverage during the summer.

If you have any questions, please contact Cody Pelletier at 713.743.5915.



Historically Underutilized Business (HUB) Statistics

UH/UHSA departments with 90% HUB use or higher that spent at least $100 in January 2009

The above percentages include HUB-eligible voucher and P-Card payments. However, HUB subcontractor payments are not included in the monthly HUB statistics but are included in the semi-annual and annual HUB reports. For departments with more than one DeptID, all DeptIDs were combined to determine the above ranking. 

HUB reports by college/division and department are posted on the web at: http://www.uh.edu/finance/pages/HUB_Reports.htm

Please call Carla West at 713.743.5661 or Alan Philips at 713.743.5671 if you need help finding a HUB vendor.

It is important for travelers (employees) and their departments to have access to the most up-to-date information for travel reimbursements. The following official websites provide current per diem and mileage reimbursement rates:

The AP Travel website at http://www.uh.edu/finance/pages/AP_Travel.htm also provides links to the above official websites. See “Per Diem and Mileage Reimbursement Rates.”

If you have any questions about travel reimbursements, please contact Sandra Silva at 713.743.5883, Edwin Rodas at 713.743.8961, or Martha Mejia at 713.743.8708 in the AP Travel Section.

UHDPS Gets Social With Twitter

The University of Houston is a community that thrives on technology and information, and the University of Houston Department of Public Safety wants to make use of both in a new effort to bolster the public’s awareness of public safety issues.

Using the social networking site Twitter, UHDPS will broadcast events and information of interest to the UH community who sign up to receive the messages. After signing up for a free Twitter account at http://www.twitter.com, users can follow UHDPS and receive updates on their cellular phone via SMS, email or through one of several Twitter applications for various mobile phone operating systems, including Windows Mobile, Android and the iPhone.

One of the lessons learned from Hurricane Ike is that SMS texting is a fast and efficient way of getting out important information, and sometimes, it’s the only way. UHDPS will not rely on Twitter for its emergency communications; the innovative PIER system that is currently used will continue to fill that duty. Chief Malcolm Davis hopes that the UH community will see UHDPS’ use of Twitter as a way of staying informed about the types of incidents that occur around campus, and the programs that may help them to stay safe. “Community awareness and participation are essential to a successful crime prevention model” says Chief Davis. “We want to make sure that our students know what is going on around them, and what they can do to take ownership of their safety.”

UHDPS has been testing the concept since late last year, and it is now live at http://twitter.com/uhdps. Those who choose to participate should remember that if they elect to receive SMS messages on their cellular telephones regular text messaging usage guidelines with their cellular carrier will apply. Recent updates can also be seen on the UHDPS website in the “UHDPS Latest News” section at www.uh.edu/police.

FEBRUARY CALENDAR