Payroll Procedures for Appointment of EPA Graduate Students

The following will be important reference information for departmental staff members who prepare EPAWeb actions and associated paperwork appointing EPA graduate students.

Graduate students (paid bi-weekly) will receive their first paycheck for the Fall Semester on August 29, 2008.  Bi-Weekly students who are not placed on the specific semester dates noted below will only receive pay from the date the submitted EPAWeb action is effective. 

TERM	BEGINNING DATE	ENDING DATE
Fall Semester	08/04/08	12/07/08
Spring Semester	12/08/08	04/12/09

Reminder that as of the Fall 2007 Semester:
 
All EPA bi-weekly salaries must be calculated on an annualized base rate (26 pay periods) using the semester beginning and ending dates above.  A spreadsheet is attached for calculating annualized rates.

The service periods 3 and 4 may no longer be used when placing these students on Payroll.  These service period codes will soon be removed from the EPAWeb.  Until that occurs, they should not be used.

 

Graduate students paid on the monthly pay cycle will use the following dates:

TERM	BEGINNING DATE	ENDING DATE
Fall Semester	08/16/08	12/31/08
Spring Semester	01/01/09	05/15/08

Please take into account the following additional information when processing your appointments for EPA graduate students:

• Prepare EPAWeb actions well in advance of the cut-off dates on the attached two schedules. Actions submitted past these dates may not be payrolled until the following pay period. Please avoid such delays by adhering to published submission deadlines.
• There are only two service period selections for EPA Graduate Students: 
• • EPA Bi-Weekly = 26 Pay Periods (Code = 5)
  • EPA  Monthly = 12 month (Code = 2)
    (The 3 and 4 Service Periods may no longer be used.)
• Student EPAWeb actions which receive appropriate departmental and applicable Dean's Office approvals do not require approval by Academic Personnel in the Office of the Provost.
• Prepare EPAWeb Student Re-employment actions when re-employing a student within the same calendar year.
• If a student has not been employed during the current calendar year, you will need to do an EPAWeb New Employment action. When using a student title, the person must be a registered student at UNC-Chapel Hill.
• Student employees must comply with all relevant federal form I-9 and Homeland Security Employment Eligibility Verification (EEV) procedures.
• Attached are "Standard Order" paperwork guidelines for EPA Student and Post-Doc appointments which includes a complete list of required personnel documents, rank codes, and appropriate payroll object codes.

If a student is a resident alien, list the resident alien number in the appropriate field on the EPAWeb action.  For non-resident alien (NRA) students who are employees, independent contractors, or those who receive scholarship or fellowship aid, have the NRA go to the Office of International  Student and Scholar Services (ISSS) at the Global Education Center to complete the applicable forms necessary for payment to assure compliance with IRS tax regulations for non-resident aliens. Refer to the Business Manual, Payroll Policy 12, Procedure 12, and Appendix 35 for federal forms unique to nonresident aliens.

Important Note: Payroll checks will be not be issued unless the appropriate forms have been completed at ISSS, entered into the Wind Star Non-Resident Alien System, and forwarded in a timely manner to University Payroll Services.  If the NRA is to take advantage of the treaty exemption, a Form 8233 must be signed in University Payroll Services.  The NRA must contact Ron Sternowski, Payroll Services at 2-7984 to schedule an appointment to sign this form.

If an EPAWeb New Employment action has been submitted in the system and needs to be cancelled, use the EPAWeb Retract function.  The Originator can retract the EPAWeb form as long as the action is in "In Process" status.

If University Payroll Services has already approved the submitted action and the action status indicates "Completed", the department will need to complete an EPAWeb End of Employment with the same effective date.  In the Comments section of the action, indicate "Cancelling New Employment action Serial number XXXX (where XXXX is the EPAWeb serial number) of the original new employment action that is to be cancelled."

Graduate students holding temporary part-time service appointments (e.g., graduate assistant, teaching assistant, clinical fellow) paid bi-weekly or monthly may request to have tuition and fees deducted from their paychecks. Such payroll deductions are not available to students paid at an hourly rate. To initiate these payroll deductions, a separate Graduate Student Payroll Deduction Authorization Form should be completed for each semester and sent to the University Cashier's Office. This form may be downloaded from:

http://www.unc.edu/finance/payroll/payap36b.doc

The due date for submitting these forms for Fall, 2007 is August 29, 2007 and Spring, 2008 will be sent by e-mail via the Business Manager and STARS listserves when this date is available from the University Cashier's Office.  Once processed by the University Cashier's Office, this office forwards authorized forms to University Payroll Services.

The details regarding the Graduate Student Health Insurance Program Enrollment are communicated separately to Departments. This information is available at the following location:

http://www.unc.edu/finance/ddd/06_11_2007.pdf