March 2004

During benefits enrollment, new faculty and administrative/professional employees are sometimes surprised to learn they must pay 7% of their compensation to Oklahoma Teachers’ Retirement during the first year of employment (and until age 26).

Employees who are 45 years or older at the time of hire are not required to join OTRS. However, if they enroll, they must continue participation until separation.

Please inform prospective new hires about this out-of-pocket benefit cost to them.

All prospective new hires will appreciate learning about the many benefits that OSU offers. If you would like to have a supply of Benefits at a Glance brochures to give to all applicants, please call (405) 744-5449. This brochure has been updated to reflect January 2004 changes.

Some departments may wish to employ students during the summer who are under the age of eighteen (18). The Oklahoma Department of Labor has specific child labor laws that apply. Below is a brief overview.

14 and 15 year olds: Departments must keep a copy of the student work permit (Certificate of Age and Schooling issued by the school principal) on file. The work 14 and 15 year olds perform must be of a non-hazardous nature.

Between June 1 and Labor Day, a student employee may work up to eight hours a day, 40 hours in any one week, and only between the hours of 7 am and 9 pm. For every consecutive eight hours of work, the student employee must be given a one-hour rest period. For every five consecutive hours of work, the student employee must be given a one-half hour rest period.

Different rules apply for employing 14 and 15 year olds during the school term.

16 and 17 year-olds: Although not required, keeping a copy of a work permit (Certificate of Age and Schooling) on file is strongly recommended for documentation purposes. The 16 and 17-year age group may work at any time for unlimited hours in any non-hazardous position.

Tuesday, April 27, 2004, on Willard Lawn.

In case of rain, the picnic will be moved to the Student Union Ballroom.

A PDF file of the guide which accompanies the HRStar Performer Certificate Program is available for download at www.okstate.edu/osu_per/docfiles/docfiles.htm. The guide is over 150 pages in length; we suggest you save the guide to your computer for future reference.

HRStar Performers are special people who have completed four comprehensive courses and definitely know their way around the Human Resource System (HRS). After completion of the second class, a framed certificate may be picked up from Training Services. After completion of the fourth class, participants receive additional gold stars to add to their certificate.

For more information about the HRStar Performer Certificate Program, and for information about the four classes, please refer to page 22 of the 2004 Faculty and Staff Development Opportunities brochure or go to www.okstate.edu/osu_per/hr/hrstar.htm.

Research and development to make the previous HRS WebFOCUS applications available again is continuing. Procedural steps have been developed to address the security concerns that caused WebFOCUS applications to be taken off-line; however, additional work is required to reliably integrate those steps with the applications.

At this time it is not possible to estimate when the HRS WebFOCUS applications will be available, although their return is still expected.

Oftentimes continuous regular employees (Job Codes A, C, E, G, I, P, Q) may reduce their FTE for a period of time. If this happens during an accrual period, the employee’s leave accrual will be affected, as it should be. However, HRS will also reduce the employee’s leave balance if it has reached the maximum accrual.

In other words if a continuous regular employee is currently at 1.00 FTE and has reached his/her maximum sick leave accrual of 1,600.00 hours, then drops to 0.50 FTE for a short period of time, this employee’s accrual will decrease to one half of the original accrual and the sick leave maximum balance will drop to 800.00. If the employee moves back to 1.00 FTE, the leave balance is not reinstated by HRS. Therefore, when this happens it will be necessary for departments to correct the employee’s sick leave balance by sending a leave correction to Payroll Services, 106 Whitehurst. It is the department’s responsibility to keep track of and ensure that their employees’ leave balances are accurate.

However, if an employee wishes to reduce his/her hours for summer (drop to 75% FTE) and
s/he is at the maximum annual leave accrual, HRS will reduce his/her annual leave accrual amount and reduce his/her annual leave balance to the 75% maximum equivalent. In this case, it may be best to leave the employee at 1.00 FTE and allow him/her to accrue the full amount, retain the balance, and use his/her annual leave to exhaust the annual leave balance down to a reasonable level (one year accrual balance). No leave correction would be necessary in this instance.