A&R is working to identify and correct the wide-ranging issues with the Top Step Payments which appear to be miscalculated or missed entirely at many agencies. Several agencies have acknowledged the issues and will notify employees of the error and will (hopefully) have it corrected in time for the next paycheck. A&R has filed an institutional grievance and OLR will issue a General Notice to correct the problems. To understand if your Top Step Payment was correct, we have put the correct amount and the incorrect amount side-by-side on the same sheet...if your payment amount is in the column with the "X" through it, expect a correction to occur in a future paycheck. View the comparison charts
For some context, today was the day many have been waiting for for quite some time. Today was the day that Top Step Payments were to return to our paychecks. Top Step Payments are a lump sum payment of 2.5% of the annual rate of pay for those who are at Step 9 of our salary charts. Top Step Payments are made on an employee's "anniversary" date. There are only 2 anniversaries: January and July. For most employees, the "anniversary" is January of each year (very few people have a July anniversary).
Standard practice is that a Top Step Payment (or an increment) is earned on the first day of the payperiod that includes either July 1 or January 1. This year, the first day of the payperiod that includes January 1 was December 21st, so TopStepPayments were earned on December 21, 2018. Well, today was the paycheck that would capture payment for that time period, therefore, today was the day that the TopStepPayment was to be received...2.5% of the annual rate of pay. If all goes smooth, everyone on Step 9 of the paygrade would get a 2.5% lump sum payment...
What we have seen is that a few agencies forgot to process the TopStepPayment...one agency decided to subtract $1000 from the TopStepPayments (we can't figure out how this became logical), but at many agencies, an incorrect amount was applied.
What we have learned is that many agencies used the payment chart from the DAS website which is listed as "Current Compensation Plans". Unfortunately, this is not accurate; this chart is from 2015 and is not "Current". The OPM/OLR website and the A&R website have the correct amounts listed which are also reflected in our new "Blue" contract book.
Bottom line: A&R is aware of the various problems the state has made withTop Step Payments. We have filed appropriate grievances and are working with OLR to ensure the problem is resolved.
Nerd Alert: for those who really want to dive in, this is how it happened and why the 2015 chart is not applicable, if you are not a nerd, please stop here.
So to understand how this happened, we have to roll back the clock to 2014. In 2014, we had TopStepPayments and a 3% GWI. Remember from above, that TopStepPayments are earned on the first day of the payperiod which includes July 1 or January 1. So in June of 2014, the TopStepPayments were calculated and a TopStepPayment chart was created...a few days after the chart was created, everyone received a 3% GWI on July 1, 2014. It was 6 months later that most people received their TopStepPayment, however, the State claimed that the chart created in late June was still applicable for the January 2015 TopStepPayment. A&R brought this to arbitration, clearly, if this was correct, then NO ONE received the full 2.5% TopStepPayment b/c the chart was created prior to the 3% GWI...to our surprise, the arbitrator sided with the State: the chart was properly created in June and was properly applicable to those who received a TSP in January despite having a GWI increase in July...it made no sense, but that was the decision.
In accordance with this arbitration decision, in 2015, the TSP chart was calculated June 26, 2015 and then four days later, on July 1, 2015 we all received a 3% GWI again....and again, NO ONE got the full 2.5% TopStepPayment. So the chart that is still on the DAS website is the chart from June 26, 2015, however, since we received raises on July 1, 2015, this chart is no longer applicable. A new chart was created based on our 2017 Contract Negotiations...this chart is listed as June 22, 2018...this is the chart that is now applicable. In addition, we also changed the contract language to reflect that the TSP is now to reflect 2.5% of the annual rate at the time the payment is to be made so we no longer have to endure the nonsense of that arbitration decision