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Every employee who gets a paycheck from Wake County is affected.
We’re changing from paying oncea month to paying semi-monthly. If you are an hourly employee (called non-exempt) you will be paid for the hours you worked, including overtime,over two time periods. The first period is from the 1st to the 15th of the month, and you will be paid for that period on the last day of the month. The hours you worked from the 16th to the last day of the month will be paid to you on the 15th of the following month.
If you are a salaried employee (called exempt) you will receive half of your normal monthly pay on the 15th of the month and the other half on the last day of the month.
Your current fixed rate payroll deductions, like health insurance, will be divided in half, and the half-portion will be deducted from each semi-monthly check.
We decided to change the pay frequency and how hourly employees are paid with the move to our new payroll system, which is part of the integrated Budget, Finance and Human Resources system called eWake. Most organizations pay hourly employees for the hours actually worked in a pay period and they also pay employees more frequently than once a month. The time to make these changes would be with our new system.
The change will be made when we go to our new payroll system. We don’t have an exact date now but are shooting for the spring of 2010, with the earliest date for your first semi-monthly check being April 15, 2010.
Non-exempt Employees (Hourly)
Hourly employees will get paid for the hours you worked—both regular and overtime—for the 1st through the 15th of the month, then for the 16th through the last day of the month.
You currently get paid 1/12th of your regular pay each month plus any overtime you earn during the month. While the 1/12th approach has given you the same base paycheck each month, the hourly approach will vary based on your actual hours worked.
This means your paycheck will be different each pay period depending on how many work days are in it and how many of those days you worked. Not every pay period has the same number of work days. So, right off the bat, your new base paycheck will be different from the one you are getting now—first, because it will be for half the month instead of for the full month, and second, because the number of work days will vary. Another thing to keep in mind is that you will get the overtime you earn sooner, because you will be paid twice a month instead of once.
Exempt Employees (Salaried)
The impact on you if you are a salaried employee is pretty straightforward—you’ll just receive half of your paycheck on the 15th and the other half on the last day of the month.
Long Schedules (E, G, V, X)
We realize that there are other schedules employees work, like our public safety workers. Timing of overtime payments will fluctuate based upon the pay period end date. For more information, contact your payroll representative.
You will receive updates through e-mail, articles in Insights, and information sessions that will be scheduled closer to the time we make the change. Be sure to bookmark this site and check WakeEmployees.com often for future updates.
You may want to take a look at your finances and decide if you will need to change any automatic deductions you have taken from your paycheck and how you budget for your monthly expenses. Sometimes it takes a while for various companies or banks to make changes to automatic drafts, so we suggest you start looking into these things now.
Stay tuned for more information on the timing of the move to our new system and the things we’ll be doing to help you get ready for it. To support you in this financial review, we have provided some tools and a form online to submit questions, but the rest is up to you; each employee will be responsible to prepare for this change.
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