Benefits to Agencies Resulting from Participating in the Bureau

Ensured Coverage of Critical Administrative Functions

Adequate administrative coverage for these critical functions is ensured with participation in the Bureau. If attrition occurs within the Bureau, standardized processes facilitate transitional business process handling. Agency management does not have to be concerned with ensuring there are adequately trained back up resources for their Payroll-related functions. Agency training administration is mitigated inasmuch as training takes on more of an ambient knowledge purpose versus that of training Agency staff on the detailed HCM processing requirements and standard business processes.

Control and Accountability

Payroll is a compilation of Human Resource, Benefits Administration and Time and Attendance transactions pre-authorized by the Agency based on Agency assigned roles. As such, the Agency is responsible for internal controls or processes that relate to those internal updates. Those assigned with these roles are accountable for the appropriateness of entries made in HCM.

Agencies continue their management autonomy over the Payroll, Leave Accounting and Benefits functions. The Human Resources and Benefits Administration functions remain within the Agency, and Bureau staff perform HCM payroll-related processing based on approval authorization of the participating Agency’s Human Resource (evidenced in the HCM, the authoritative system) and Fiscal management (evidenced in Certification related materials).

As an Agency participating in the Bureau, the HCM roles for Payroll Administrator, Absence Administrator, and EPR Only Entry have been solely assigned to the Bureau to perform tasks associated with these roles. As such, the Bureau has the responsibility for the accuracy of information entered by those with these roles. In addition to the above roles, the Bureau also maintains the TL Set Up and T and L Admin roles for the sole purpose of correctional transactional payroll entries that cannot be made by the Agency due to system limitations. Access to these roles is maintained by the Cardinal security team and are solely requested and authorized by the Bureau Director and/or Bureau Assistant Directors.

For control and accountability:

• Payments will not be made outside of the payroll system, however in the event such payment is necessary, the Agency will rely on the Bureau to calculate and provide net and gross payment calculations to the Agency in order for such payment to be made and will rely on the Bureau to convey Agency requests to State Payroll Operations, when needed.
• The Agency will rely on the Bureau regarding the best practices methodology and employee collection amount resulting from employee overpayments.
• The Bureau will provide key reports and reconciliations throughout the pay cycle to clearly identify changes made by the Agency HCM roles (HR Admin and Ben Admin roles, and Time and Attendance) that impact employee pay and those necessary updates made by the Bureau to override payroll transactions computed by HCM to correct or adjust pay.
• For Off-Cycle payrolls, the Fiscal Officer must provide additional authorization prior to confirmation for exceptional payment processing outside the normal payment process.
• Bureau employees with assigned roles are authorized to initiate necessary transactions for general deductions, banking and tax withholding set up, stop payments, net and gross pay balance adjustments, SPOT overrides when necessary for corrective action of pre-authorized Human Resource, Benefits Administration and Time and Attendance transactions, garnishment processing, paysheet update requests, annual reporting adjustments, and those with confirmation/certification authority will provide such authorizations, when requested to confirm these transactions appear to appropriately represent the necessary adjustments in the pay period.

Uniformity of Payroll Practices

With the Bureau comprised of a centralized processing group within DOA, there is greater assurance of compliance with Federal guidelines and uniformity in the application of State personnel policies and payroll practices. Interactions with the State Payroll Operations Unit keep the Bureau abreast of new benefit and compensation programs and provide valuable input for enhancements to the HCM System. The Bureau routinely explores opportunities for process improvements and utilization of Best Practices that will ensure labor efficiencies while preserving data integrity.