May 14, 2024
Topics
Leave of absence, Paid Leave Oregon
Part-time employees
Employer training
Changing information after retirement
Running reports
Hiring employees
Terminating employees
Member annual statements
Reporting wages
Phone calls from PERS
Giving feedback
Leave of absence, Paid Leave Oregon
Q1: Can you touch on leave of absence and when to report leaves?
You need to report an employee’s leave to PERS when the employee is away on an unpaid leave for 11 or more working
days
in a month. (“Unpaid” means the employee is not receiving pay from the employer.) The days do not need to be
consecutive.
A leave of fewer than 11 days does not need to be reported as a leave.
For information about employees on nonstandard schedules (e.g., 24-hour days, weekends), read the “Nonstandard
Schedules” section of the LWOP FAQ. For more information about reporting
leave without pay (LWOP), read
employer
reporting guide 11, Reporting a Leave.
Q2: What if an employee is on leave and is receiving pay from Paid Leave Oregon and not from the
employer?
If your employee is taking a Paid Leave Oregon leave paid by the state-run program or a third-party-run program,
report
that time as a leave without pay (LWOP) to PERS if it lasts 11 working days in a month or longer. Do not report the
pay
to PERS.
If your employee is taking a Paid Leave Oregon leave paid by the employer, do not report your employee as on a
leave. Do
report the pay to PERS in the same way you normally report that employee’s pay.
If you are paying your employee a portion of their salary on top of Paid Leave Oregon pay from a state-run or
third-party-run program, called “gross-up,” do report those payments to PERS.
Learn more in
employer reporting guide 13, Family and Medical Leave, and in the
Paid Leave Oregon and PERS Reporting FAQ.
Q3: What if my employee is receiving workers’ comp?
Workers’ compensation is paid by a third party, not the employer, so it is not reported to PERS. However, you should
submit a Demographic Correction Request (DCR) to inform PERS that an employee is receiving workers’ compensation.
Also,
if you are paying the employee a portion of their salary on top of their workers’ comp payments, called “gross-up,”
you
need to report those payments to PERS.
Learn more in
employer reporting guide 13, Family and Medical Leave, section “Reporting Pay During Family or
Medical
Leave,” subsection “Workers’ Compensation.”
Q4: I reported an employee that missed more than 11 days, but then it went Suspended when I reported the dates
because
they did have pay in the pay period(s). Some pay and some no pay in the same pay period. If there is any pay in
the pay
period, do we not report?
There are a couple of reasons why your record might have suspended.
-
You reported pay for an employee on a leave status. You can’t report any pay while a person is on a leave. If
you
need to report pay, the way you report it depends on the type of pay. If you have holiday wages to report, take
them off
leave for the day/days, post the wages, then put them back on leave. If you have wages to report that have no
hours
(e.g., equipment reimbursement), then leave the employee on leave status and report the wages using wage code 08
–
Contributions/No Service.
-
If you’re a local government employer, your work period dates might have overlapped. If work period dates
overlap,
that can cause your record to suspend. Check your dates and fix them, if necessary.
Q5: If I have an employee who takes time off with no pay for an entire reporting period, what code do I
enter?
If you mean a wage code, you don’t enter wages while an employee is off with no pay. If you mean a status code,
enter
the appropriate leave code as listed in the Status
Codes quick reference guide. The most commonly used status code for a
leave of absence is code 07 – On Leave of Absence. When they return, use 08 - Return From Leave. For more
instructions,
read employer
reporting guide 11, Reporting a Leave.
Q6: Is there any progress with PERS reporting and Paid Leave Oregon — specifically a formula since reporting is
different for Tier One/Tier Two and OPSRP?
First, let’s clarify how contributions to the Paid Leave Oregon program are reported to PERS. As explained in
employer reporting guide 13, Family and Medical Leave, section “Paid Leave Oregon,” the program is
funded through contributions
of up to 1% of an employee’s salary. That 1% is paid 60% by a deduction from the employee’s wages and 40% by the
employer. Neither of these Paid Leave Oregon contributions are reported to PERS.
However, when the employer pays, or “picks up,” an Oregon Public Service Retirement Plan (OPSRP) employee’s 60%
portion,
the amount the employer is picking up is reported to PERS as subject salary. Go to page 12 of guide
13 for more
information about reporting the employer pick-up.
Regarding employee payments from the program, the only payments that are reported to PERS are payments from an
employer-run program. Learn more in guide
13.
PERS has not developed a formula to make Paid Leave Oregon reporting faster because Paid Leave Oregon is not a PERS
program; it is administered by the Oregon Employment Department.
Part-time employees
Q7: We have a school employee who wants to work part time. If he doesn’t work full time, will he still be
credited a
full year of service?
For PERS purposes, you are considered to have worked all portions of a school year as long as you work at least 50
hours
or are on at least 50 hours of paid leave in each month of a school year when school is in session and do not have a
leave without pay of 11 or more business days in a calendar month. School employees receive six months of creditable
service for each half of a school year in which they perform service or are on paid leave for a major fraction of
each
month school is normally in session. Once a school employee has established PERS membership and contributions have
started, the dates of employment are used to determine if the member will receive educational service credit for the
summer months associated with each half of the school year.
To get credit for summer months:
-
Credit for June: School employees who work January 7 through May 26 receive service credit for
June of that year. To
ensure they get credit, do not terminate or place an employee on leave until after May 26.
-
Credit for July and August: School employees who work September 15* through December 15 receive
service credit for
July and August of that year. To ensure they get credit, do not terminate or place an employee on leave until
after
December 15
.
*September 26 for higher education employees.
Q8: I have a question about part-time hours. We hire people into qualifying or non-qualifying. I was always told
people
need to work 50 hours a month to get service credit if they are non-qualifying. Even if they reach 600 hours, if
there
are some months they don’t work 50 they won’t qualify for service credit. I ask because I’ve had substitute
teachers who
thought they had more service credit than they ended up having.
A member in a non-qualifying position will not accrue service credit. If the position becomes qualifying (i.e., once
they have worked 600 or more hours in a calendar year), the member will accrue service credit for months in which
they
worked a major fraction of the month (i.e., 50 or more hours). For PERS purposes, a school employee is considered to
have worked all portions of a school year as long as they work the majority of the month (assumed to be 50 hours)
when
school is in session and do not have a leave without pay of 11 or more business days in a calendar month.
There are a few ways PERS members can check their service credit.
-
Employees can check their service credit on their member annual statement.
-
Those within two years of their retirement date can request a written benefit estimate:
-
Employees within two years of retirement can also request a data verification. They can read the process on the
Data Verification webpage.
Q9: I have many records that are suspended due to “worked more than 600 hours” or “does not
qualify for contributions.”
When I correct the record, the next day they will be suspended for the opposite reason. For example, Susan was
suspended
for working over 600 hours. When I corrected her wage type from non-qualifying wages to “regular
wages,” the record
suspended the next day for "not qualifying."
The issue in this example is that the wrong correction was made for this situation. When a record suspends because a
non-qualifying employee has reached enough hours to qualify for membership, it is not the wage code that needs to
change
— it’s the employee’s qualification status in the PERS system.
There are three different ways this situation would be handled depending on the circumstances. In the example of
your
employee, Susan, you would submit a DCR to PERS requesting to have Susan’s position type changed to active service
for
that calendar year. Once her status is changed, you would then begin reporting her wages as 01 – Regular Wages and
include IAP contributions of 6% if membership has been met.
To learn more about how to change qualification status depending on the situation, read
employer reporting guide 10,
Reporting Wages for a Non-Qualifying Employee
, section “Changing From Non-Qualifying to Qualifying Status” and/or
Beginner Training Manual 2,
section “Adjusting Qualification Status,” starting on page 49.
Another resource is employer
reporting guide 6, Correcting Suspended Records, section “Avoiding a Common Error When
Reporting Part-Time Employees.”
Employer training
Q10: Will you be scheduling more employer training?
For now, we have scheduled training through October 2024. We will be adding more training this fall and winter.
Until
then, if you need help with a specific issue, contact your Employer Service Center (ESC) employer representative.
For
self-learning, you can use the employer manuals Beginner Training 1 and Beginner Training 2 posted on the
Training webpage under Training Manual. You can also refer to the employer reporting guides, which include step-by-step
instructions for different reporting situations.
Changing information after retirement
Q11: Can you clarify if accounts cannot be reopened for corrections at all after termination has posted for retirement,
or is that only after the 240 days post-retirement date that it cannot be reopened?
It’s only after the 240-day deadline that we can’t accept any changes. But do let PERS know what the correction should
have been so the account can be noted. To learn more about the 240-day deadline, including exceptions to the deadline,
read employer announcement 104, “Deadline to Make Changes to a Retiree’s Account.”
Running reports
Q12: When will there be a report available that we can run ourselves that shows what you have collected for each
employee for the pension, similar to the one we can run for the IAP voluntary and involuntary contributions?
It sounds like you’re talking about an easier way to see employer rate contributions. Your ESC representative can get
you that information by running a report for the period of time that you want, such as for a yearly audit. ESC has
submitted a request for this functionality; we do not yet know when it will be available.
Hiring employees
Q13: If an employee has elected to participate in the Voluntary IAP contributions with a previous employer, do they have
to request this again when hired by a new PERS employer? Or do they maintain that status between employers similar to a
contribution start date?
Employees do not need to opt into voluntary contributions again when changing jobs. That’s why it’s a good practice to
run an IAP Voluntary Contribution Report on a regular basis or whenever you hire new employees. The report produces a
list of all employees who have elected to start or stop voluntary contributions, their PERS plan, and their voluntary
contribution percentage (0.75% for OPSRP, 2.5% for Tier One/Tier Two). A status check will also provide this information
and is a good practice when hiring a new employee.
You will also receive a Work List item as soon as a Detail 1 new-hire record posts informing you that the new employee
participates in the voluntary contributions.
Learn how to run an IAP Voluntary Contribution Report and do a status check in
employer reporting guide 24, Running Reports.
To learn more about voluntary contributions and the Member Redirect program, read the webpage
How to Manage an Employee’s Voluntary Contribution.
Terminating employees
Q14: How can you run a report showing your current employees to make sure everyone is still active? I’m worried I might
have missed terminating past employees.
You can request a report listing your active employees from your ESC representative.
Member annual statements
Q15: Have the employee annual statements been mailed?
Member annual statements are mailed to members every spring. They arrive in late May to mid-June.
Q16: Did I hear you say PERS member annual statements are printable now?
No, that is not correct. They are printed by PERS and mailed. If a member needs another copy of their member annual
statement, they can request one by doing one of the following:
-
Calling the Member Information Center at 888-320-7377. Because the statement contains personal account information,
they will need to verify their identity.
-
Logging into their OMS account and using the “Ask PERS a question” function to request it to be mailed or faxed to
them.
Members can also view some of their membership information in Online Member Services (OMS).
Reporting wages
Q17: Are Paid Leave Oregon premiums or state tax considered PERS wages?
Only Paid Leave Oregon premiums that are paid by the employer and Paid Leave Oregon payments paid to the employee by the
employer are reported as wages to PERS. State taxes are not reported to PERS. For questions about subject salary contact
Employer Service Center. For questions regarding state taxes consult your tax advisor.
Phone calls from PERS
Q18: We had a couple guys call a couple weeks ago regarding our PERS reporting. They said they were contacting different
agencies. Was that really PERS?
This brings up a good point about security. Certain PERS teams will call employers to return a phone call or verify
information. However, PERS does not call or email employers to solicit financial planning or investment classes nor to
offer financial advice. We do not charge for educational classes or materials.
If someone calls from PERS and asks you to confirm an employee’s (or your own) personally identifiable information, such
as Social Security number, feel free to tell them you prefer to call PERS to verify their identity. Contact your ESC
representative or the ESC call center and ask them to find out if that PERS individual or organization is trying to get
ahold of you.
Furthermore, if you are talking to an ESC representative and you are not in a private space, tell them you prefer to
identify your employee by PERS ID instead of by Social Security number. They will understand that you are protecting
your employee’s personal information.
ESC Call Center
8:30 a.m. – 12 p.m., Monday to Friday (excluding holidays)
888-320-7377: select option 1; then option 2 to reach ESC
ESC Representatives webpage
Giving feedback
Q19: If we have a suggestion for EDX, where can we send the suggestion?
Please email your suggestion to the Employer Service Center at pers.edx.support@pers.oregon.gov.