Summer Appointments (Faculty and Graduate Assistants)

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Overview

Faculty and many Graduate Assistant employees are most-often employed for nine month or longer time periods and at least 50% FTE. Most of these employees are eligible for various Texas A&M University System benefits that should continue during the summer when an additional appointment is made that extends beyond their primary Fall / Spring position.

The purpose of this guide is to provide best practice guidance for making this type of additional appointment for Faculty and Graduate Assistants during the summer months to avoid a disruption to benefits for the Employee.

Key Points:

• • Information discussed in this guide is targeted for individuals whose employment in the summer differs from that of their original Fall / Spring appointment. Recommendations provided are not targeted for Student Worker, Temporary / Casual, Staff, Adjunct, or Fixed-Term Faculty
  • There are three Workday business processes that can be used to appropriately assign summer appointments: Add Additional Job, Change Job and Request One-Time Payment
  • Benefits eligibility requires that the Employee be working in a position that has an annual work period of at least 4.5 months and is at least 50% FTE
  • If you need to override Longevity Eligibility on an additional job during the summer, use the Change Job business process with the Reason > Data Change > Job Classification change.

IMPORTANT: Not all system members allow overrides. Do NOT override Longevity Eligibility without confirming your member’s Longevity policy

Definition

A summer appointment is additional work the faculty member or graduate assistant is performing for all or part of the summer semester. This work is not guaranteed and may not be determined until later in the academic year. The type of work this includes may be teaching, research or other specific duties.

Faculty

There are three business processes you can use to pay an employee for work completed during the summer outside of their Fall / Spring appointment.

Add Additional Job

Workday Services will strongly recommends to use the Add Additional Job business process for most summer appointments. This means the Employee will have an additional job for summer work. Using this approach is particularly beneficial when that work differs from that of the primary job. It could also be that there is a significant break between when work for the primary position and work for the secondary position are completed.

Advantages

Advantages of using this option for summer appointments include:

• • You will be able to view the entirety of employment for the individual during the fiscal year
  • You can differentiate FTE %, compensation or costing allocations from the primary job
  • The benefits package remains in tact
  • The Employee receives pay during their normal payroll processing period
  • The Employee can remain in the same Supervisory Organization with the same manager or it can differ
  • The Employee may receive longevity pay (if applicable)

Impacts

Impacts to consider when choosing Add Additional Job for the summer appointment include:

• • The position you want them to fill must already exist. If the position does not exist, you will need to create it using normal business processes for your member
  • You should avoid switching the primary and additional jobs unless absolutely required due to the possible negative impacts it can have on the benefits-eligible position
  • You must override the Longevity Eligible Pay job classification using the Change Job business process if the Employee is eligible for Longevity Pay
  • The Employee will not be eligible for automated time off accruals for the summer appointment. Therefore, time off accruals must be manually edited if the Employee is eligible
  • The additional job will remain an active position for the Employee until you take action. If you do not intend to continue the Employee’s summer appointment the following year, you need to initiate the End Additional Job business process at the end of the employment contract.

*WARNING: If no action is taken, the Employee will be paid during the additional job’s months the following year even though they are no longer performing the work of the summer appointment

Change Job

Another option is to extend the faculty member’s employment by changing the current academic pay period assigned to the position to one that includes both the 9 month appointment and the summer appointment (e.g. 11 months). This option is best for when the employment extends into the summer and the work is similar, or there is no anticipated break between the work performed during the Spring versus the Summer.

This approach works best if the Employee’s percent effort does not vary over the summer and they are compensated for a continuous period.

Advantages

Advantages of using this option for summer appointments include:

• • The Employee remains in one primary job position
  • You can effective date the business process to differentiate FTE, compensation or costing allocations
  • The benefits package remains in tact
  • The Employee receives pay during their normal payroll processing period
  • The Employee may receive longevity pay (if applicable)

IMPORTANT: Never reduce the academic pay period to below 4.5 months and the scheduled hours below 20 (50% FTE) as this can negative impact benefits for the Employee.

Impacts

Impacts to consider when choosing Change Job to make a summer appointment include:

• • If FTE% and annual months fall below eligibility threshold, the Employee will lose their benefits
  • 12 over 9 insurance premium deductions will remain as originally elected
  • The Employee must use Request Leave of Absence or Request Time Off (Unpaid) for non-working, unpaid breaks within the annual work period of the summer appointment
  • You must override the Longevity Eligible Pay job classification using the Change Job business process if the Employee is eligible for Longevity Pay
  • If you elect to assign the Employee’s position to a 12 month term (previously less than 12 months), this will automate vacation time off accruals. This means you may need to manually edit time off accruals using Maintain Accrual and / or monitor vacation time off requests
  • The extended academic pay period will remain in effect for the position for the Employee until you take action. If you do not intend to continue the Employee’s summer appointment the following year, you need to initiate the Change Job business process again to revert the position back to the regular Fall / Spring appointment

WARNING: If no action is taken, the Employee will be paid during the additional months the following year even though they are no longer performing the work of the summer appointment

Request One-Time Payment

Your third option for accommodating a summer appointment is to use the Request One-Time Payment business process. Three compensation plans (earning codes) are available for summer appointments. These earning codes are:

• • Study Abroad
  • Summer Teaching
  • Summer Research

These three compensation plans are set up to absorb SGIP costs, and pay FICA and FIT at a “regular pay” rate following the Employee’s Federal Income Tax W-4 rate. These earning codes are reported to TRS as creditable earnings.

*Note: Study Abroad was set up for W-4 rate in February 2020

Advantages

Advantages of using this option for summer appointments include:

• • The Employee receives additional compensation on their first regular payroll processing period following the Effective Date of the Request One-Time Payment
  • Best for one-off task or short-term program different from primary job
  • Can differentiate compensation and / or costing allocation

Impacts

Impacts to consider when choosing Request One-Time Payment to compensate the Employee for summer work include:

• • The security roles that support the Employee’s Supervisory Organization will need to initiate the Request One-Time Payment business process. This means that if the work performed is for a different Supervisory Organization, collaboration among offices may be needed
  • The approval for the One-Time payment will not route based on the costing allocation worktag
  • You will need to manually add state service credit for paid work time and time off accruals (if applicable) using the Maintain Accrual business process
  • Any benefits packages for the Employee will remain in tact

Graduate Assistants

Graduate Assistant employment should follow the same solutions and guidance as given for Faculty for summer work

• The Graduate Assistant’s primary job must meet the criteria for benefits eligibility for benefits to continue throughout the summer
• If the Graduate Assistant is in a 12 month position, and is not working during the summer, change their annual work period to 9 months if needed. You will need to work with your member’s Benefits office to determine how to collect summer insurance premiums for the Employee
• If the Graduate Assistant’s work will be split between research and teaching, you can use the primary job and additional job to differentiate between the research position and the teaching position. You can also set up separate costing allocations if necessary.

WARNING: the primary job must remain benefits-eligible at 50% FTE or more for at least 4.5 months until you have added the additional job

IMPORTANT: Similar to guidelines for faculty, avoid switching primary and additional job unless absolutely required otherwise it will be a negative impact on the benefits-eligible position

Insurance Overview

Be sure that actions you take will keep benefits intact. Don’t reduce hours and annual work period below the eligibility threshold. Remember: The Employee must be scheduled for at least 20 hours and in an academic pay period of at least 4.5 months.

Managing Elections

You will use custom Other IDs to manage summer insurance premium payment elections. The Employee’s payment election will not be modified later due to the method you chose to use for summer appointments.

Deductions

Employees with a 9, 10 or 11 month Academic Pay Period will be enrolled in 12 over 9 insurance premium payments. New employees will be defaulted to a 4-month deduction (monthly billing will be allowed on an exception basis) in May.

Encumbrances

The next two sections overview what you can expect for encumbrances on filled positions and unfilled positions.

Filled Positions

Filled positions will encumber based on the Worker Position Earnings and Worker Position Costing Allocations. This does not change for a summer appointment. The following are a few reminders:

• • Encumbrance for Additional Job will be for retirement, FICA, WCI and UCI but will not encumber for SGIP
  • Encumbrance for Primary Job will adjust with effective date of Change Job

State Group Insurance Premium (Employer Portion Actual Costing)

The FAMIS team is evaluating the best approach for encumbering SGIP expense for summer coverage

Unfilled Positions

Members can select if they want to encumber unfilled positions. This is true for positions during the summer months as well as the Fall / Spring semesters. Screen 842 in FAMIS includes the “vacant-enc’ flag. If you select the flag, your vacant positions will encumber. You can also vary your options for Worker types. For example, you may want to encumber Faculty positions but not Graduate Assistant positions. FAMIS does not distinguish between whether a position is intended to be a primary job or an additional job. If the position meets the criteria established by the member to encumber, it will encumber.

Electing to Encumber

When the member elects to encumber unfilled positions, the encumbrance and funding source will not be based on the compensation and costing allocations assigned to the Worker Position for the Employee who vacated the position. Instead, the encumbrance and funding source will be based on the compensation and costing allocations assigned to the Position Restriction. This means the encumbrance on the unfilled position will likely be more or less than what was being encumbered when the position was filled. If a member has elected to encumber an unfilled position, and the unfilled position closes, encumbrances will be released using the Salary Savings process.

Electing Not to Encumber

If a member elects not to encumber on a vacant position, the encumbrances will be released after Termination or End Additional Job.