Month: September 2020

Federal Employee Paid Leave Act Update

Message from the Indianapolis Civilian Payroll Office:

As you may be aware, the Federal Employee Paid Leave Act (FEPLA), authorized by NDAA for FY 20 (PL 116-92), is effective October 1, 2020. 

FEPLA allows  for the substitution of 12 weeks of FEPLA paid leave for FMLA unpaid leave in connection with the birth, adoption or foster placement of employee’s child on or after October 1, 2020. 

DFAS is working to program DCPS for this new leave type, but in the interim agencies should do the following:

  • Determine employee eligibility according to the agency’s policy guidance for FEPLA or the regular FMLA process.  Intermittent employees and temporary appointments less than one year are excluded
  • T&A should reflect type hour code ‘LV’ for FEPLA paid parental leave
  • Track employee usage of FEPLA manually to prevent exceeding the 12-week limit.

If you have any questions contact the help desk at 1-800-729-3277 or DSN 580-7500, Monday – Friday 07:30 am to 4:00 pm EST

AF FM Civilian Development Team (DT) Feedback Webinar

FM DT co-chairs, Maj Gen James D. Peccia (SAF/FMB) and Mr. Richard K. Hartley (SAF/FM), along with CMSgt Kendall C. Briscoe (SAF/FM), invite you to join them for the Summer 2020 Civilian DT Feedback Webinar.

Topics covered include:
• Development Team (DT) Overview
• AF Board Results
• Lessons Learned
• Way-Forward for AY22 Applications

When: Monday, 21 September 2020, 1300 CST

Where: Microsoft Teams link:
https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_Y2Q5ZDVjZjgtNDk5ZC00NzZmLTlhNDYtZTg3ZmIxY2U0M2Q3%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%2221acfbb3-32be-4715-9025-1e2f015cbbe9%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%229b31c4ec-efa9-4429-96f9-6df0cadb5c88%22%7d

+1 571-388-3904 United States, Arlington (Toll)
Conference ID: 773 124 725#

DFAS Deferred Payroll Tax System Change Request

Please share the  below information with your Time Keepers and members.

Late yesterday evening, DFAS identified three programming issues with the implementation of the Deferred Payroll Tax (OASDI) System Change Request (SCR).  Their IT partners worked through the evening to deploy an emergency SCR to correct the issues, however all records were not updated during final pass last night.  All impacted employees requiring deferral of OASDI were corrected today, are processing in retro, and will see a refund of the OASDI deduction during pay period ending September 26, 2020.

More details below on the nature of those issues…we do not have a list of employees impacted, but DFAS has indicated all impacted employees will receive a SmartDoc when the refund piece has been run.

Issue #1:  Employees who reported time and attendance on Saturday, September 12: Employees that fall within this category who had wages subject to the OASDI collection that were less than $4,000, erroneously had their OASDI deducted during pay period ending.  Our IT partners were able to correct employee records during final pass is time and attendance was reported on Saturday except on the ZL0, Navy Shipyard/Overseas Database.  DCPS was erroneously calculating Day 14 of the pay period twice causing an employee who was close to hitting the $4,000 threshold to have OASDI collected.  For example, an employee’s gross pay was $3,800 in gross wages with 8 hours of time and attendance reported on Saturday.  DCPS erroneously added the 8 hours of pay ($300) twice for September 12 causing the earnings subject to OASDI to calculate at $4,100 versus the actual wages of $3,800.

Issue #2:  Employees who had lump sum payments for leave payouts:  Employees that fall within this category had a form of leave payout such as aged compensatory time.  Within the DCPS programming logic leave payouts are assigned to the last day of the pay period, Day 14.  Similar to the issue described above, DCPS was erroneously calculating these earnings twice.  It caused an employees who were close to the $4,000 threshold and have payouts included in the calculation to have their OASDI collected.

Issue #3:  Non-taxable earnings:  Employees that fall within this category did not properly have the non-taxable earnings reduce the OASDI subject-to wages.  For example, an employee’s gross wages were $4,100 and had non-taxable deductions for FEHB, dental and vision in the amount of $300.  OASDI subject-to-wages should have been $3,800 which would have put the employee below the $4,000 threshold and no OASDI deduction should have occurred. 

Brenda Denton

Financial Management Specialist

AFRC MDTA

HQ AFRC/FMFQ

brenda.denton@us.af.mil