As you know, Gov. Whitmer announced the statewide closure of all K-12 school buildings until Sunday, April 5. Many of you have questions about how this closure will impact your retirement reporting duties.
It has been decided that members will still receive service credit during this time when they are receiving their normal compensation through payroll. Unemployment compensation, however, is not reportable and the member will not receive service credit. Continue to report and make payments to ORS as usual according to your pay schedule. If you are unable to submit reports, accept reports, or make payments, please contact ORS Employer Reporting.
As much as you are able, please continue returning contracts for contract reviews. And continue completing any Regular Retirement (non-IPP) Final Payroll Details (FPDs) so we can put the retiring members on the pension payroll timely. If needed, review the Reporting Instruction Manual (RIM) Chapter 11 for help with FPDs.
ORS has cancelled board meetings and upcoming retirement workshops and closed the walk-in center at our office in Lansing until Friday, April 3.
We will provide updates as appropriate, via email and on our website.
As a reminder, information around this outbreak is changing rapidly. The latest information is available at Michigan.gov/Coronavirus and CDC.gov/Coronavirus.
We appreciate your cooperation and patience as we work together to respond appropriately to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Employer and member contribution rates for the upcoming fiscal year are now published and posted on the Employer Information website under Contribution Rates. These rate tables will go into effect on October 1, 2020.
From the Contribution Rates page, click the link for your reporting unit type (universities or non-universities) and find the newly published tables under “Current and Upcoming Rates.”
 This year, the columns labeled “Pension Early Retirement Incentive” in the Active Members and Retirees sections of Employer DB contribution rates have been removed. This part of the contribution was paid off in 2019 so these columns are no longer required. The column you need for reporting is the DB Total, which was not affected.
Remember to check the current list of critical shortage positions published by the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) when determining how to report retirees who return to work. This list gets updated regularly by MDE and was last updated on Dec. 10, 2019.
If you report retirees who are returning to work, please review the complete list and the rules regarding how to report retirees returning to work. The Employer Information website section called Reporting Retirees and Chapter 9 in the RIM provide detailed information on how to report these retirees.
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Your 2020-21 payroll calendar is now available for review on the Employer Reporting website. The dates on your calendar were created following the schedule used in your 2019-20 payroll calendars. Please review your online payroll calendar dates to ensure they correspond to the pay period begin and end dates that will be used for your retirement detail reports in fiscal year 2020-21.
You can view your calendar by clicking the View Payroll Calendar link. Under Existing Calendars, locate the FY 2020-21 calendar link(s). This will open the Create/Edit Payroll Calendar Details screen. Verify the pay period start and end dates listed under Option 2 – View Payroll Period Dates.
Important: Adjustments to your payroll calendar will result in changes to your pay cycle report and payment due dates.
ORS will not accept calendar changes in the event a pay period end date falls on a holiday or a weekend. Changes in a payroll calendar are allowed only in the instance of changing the frequency of pay (biweekly, semimonthly, or monthly) or in the case of a fiscal year with 27 pay periods.
Only ORS can make changes to your payroll calendar. If your 2020-21 calendar needs to be changed you must contact ORS no later than Friday, May 22, 2020. Please submit any changes by completing the Payroll Calendar Submission and Change Request (R1073C) form located on the Employer Information website under Reporting Forms.
For more information on payroll calendars please see the RIM sections 7.03.00 and 7.03.01.
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On Thursday, March 5 you received an email invitation to complete a survey that will provide ORS feedback on how we can improve our processes and build a stronger relationship with you.
For those who have completed the survey already — thank you for your valuable feedback. If you haven’t yet responded, there’s still time. The survey is open until midnight tomorrow (Thursday, March 19). Completing the survey shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes and the feedback is very useful.
Beginning this year, we created separate surveys for payroll staff (those in employer reporting, payment processor, and web administrator roles) and for administrators (superintendents and other administrators, as well as business officials and human resource directors). Having two surveys means fewer questions for you and easier analysis for us.
A small handful of you may have received survey invitations for both the payroll staff and the administrative staff, because you’re in our system as both types of roles. Please submit responses to only one survey, selecting the one that best fits your primary or daily work on ORS reporting.
In addition, this year we will send surveys more frequently — twice more in 2020. The type and amount of work you do fluctuates somewhat with the calendar. By receiving your input at different points in the year, we’ll have more data and thus be better able to spot trends.
Each year we analyze the data we collect and consider how to improve our processes and communication in response to it. We will keep you informed on our findings along the way.
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