Top Story
 The State
Comptroller will be hosting a roundtable for agency CFOs from 1:30 to 4 p.m. on June 6. An e-mail detailing
this event was sent to all agency Chief Financial Officers on May 3. If you are the primary financial officer of
your agency and did not receive the e-mail, please contact Stephanie Brown at
405-521-6366 or Stephanie.brown@omes.ok.gov.
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PAYROLL
The OMES Form DER, Deceased Employee Reporting, is required
to be completed by agencies when an employee dies and payments are made after
the date of death. The form is on the OMES website under DCAR Forms. Once
completed, please send the form to OMES/DCAR payroll, attention Beth Brox or
Jean Hayes. Please complete and submit
the form after the employee payments have processed so that year-end reporting
will be correct.
For procedures on processing payroll after the death of
employee, the HCM how-to document titled ‘Payroll Processing for Death of an
Employee’ is on the Business Application Services (formerly EBS/CORE) website
under HCM’s Module News for ‘How-to Documents’.
NOTE: Please remember to update the date of death on
the HR Personal Data Record, update Job Data for a termination with the reason
code ‘SO4’ (deceased), and terminate the employee’s direct deposit banks will
return direct deposits for deceased customers. A return of an item will
cause a delay to the individual receiving the payment.
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40 O.S. § 165.3a, allows employers to provide employees the
option of designating a beneficiary for wages and benefits payable upon an
employee’s death. There is no requirement for an employer to allow employees to
select beneficiaries, but agencies may want to consider adopting a policy which
allows employees to designate a beneficiary. Providing the option to employees
relieves stress and anxiety on the family members after the death of the employee. Also, agencies would have clear guidance on who is to receive
final wage payments and avoid any potential difficulties.
This statute does not include any longevity payment that may
be due as of the date of death of an employee. 74, O.S. § 840-2.18, subsection
H.2, authorizes any longevity payment to be paid to the decedent’s surviving
spouse, or if there is no surviving spouse, to the decedent’s estate.
The Human Capital
Management Division of OMES has developed a standardized Outstanding Wage
Beneficiary form for agency use. OMES – FORM HCM 016 (Revised 04/20/15)
is available on the HCM website.
Although it is not
mandatory to use the OMES – FORM HCM 016, agencies are advised to include all the data elements found in the standardized
form in
any internally developed form.
For more information or sample forms and instructions,
please contact Lisa Raihl at 405-521-3258, lisa.raihl@omes.ok.gov or Jean Hayes
at 405-522-6300, jean.hayes@omes.ok.gov.
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The recommended best practice is that a replacement payroll
warrant should not be processed until the incorrect warrant has been reversed.
Processing another payroll before the desired reversal is complete may cause
balance issues for social security, medicare and unemployment wages and taxes.
Additionally, completing the reversal first allows reversed time to either be
processed through payroll again, or if needed, time can be corrected and then
processed again. If time entered was invalid or incorrect and should not be
pulled into payroll again, it should be corrected on the timesheet and
processed through Time Administration.
If an agency chooses to run a payroll before the reversal is
complete, the agency is responsible for verifying the Social Security, Medicare
and unemployment wages and taxes are correct on the replacement payroll
warrant. The amounts should be manually calculated, as if the reversal had been
completed, and verified to the system calculated amounts. If different, please
contact the OMES service desk and an EBS team member will assist you.
The agency is also responsible for going to the time sheet
and removing the time that processed back through payroll when a replacement
check was processed before a reversal was completed. When a payroll check
that had time pulled in from Time and Labor is reversed, the reversal creates
offset payable time with status “Reversed” and an additional row in payable
time with “Estimated” status when the check reversal is confirmed. The
“Estimated” payable time will be pulled into payroll again when payroll is
processed if not removed, which may cause an overpayment.
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Agencies need to review the PS Financials Payroll 36 Month
Statutory Cancellation Report on a regular basis. If there is a payroll warrant
listed and the employee is entitled to the funds, please complete the OMES Form
20R and send to Transaction Processing. This will allow a replacement
warrant to be issued to provide the employees their due pay.
If a payroll warrant is listed and the employee is not
entitled to the funds, the issuing agency must notify OMES (62 O.S. § 34.80).
Notification should include the employee name, warrant number, warrant date,
and amount. The notification must be signed by an agency approving
authority. Please send notification to Transaction Processing stating that the
warrant should not be reissued. In addition, the amounts must be removed from
the employee’s earning record. Please contact Lisa Raihl at 405-521-3258, lisa.raihl@omes.ok.gov or Jean Hayes
at 405-522-6300, jean.hayes@omes.ok.gov
to have this completed.
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ACCOUNTING
Three pieces
of legislation that affect travel reimbursements were recently signed by the
Governor (HB 2435, HB 2619, and HB 2704). Over the next few months, the Statewide
Accounting Manual will be updated. Until
that time, this article presents the procedures that will be enforced in
regards to the new legislation. The
statutes and policy changes are effective Nov. 1, 2016. Until that day, we will accept travel claims
either way.
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Travel claims and vouchers may now cover more than 30
days. However one claim cannot cover
more than one fiscal year.
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OMES will publish a schedule of mileage rates prior to
Nov. 1. At that time,
all references to the IRS reimbursement rates in the Statewide Accounting
Manual will become obsolete and all employees should rely only on the rates
published by OMES.
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Rather than using map mileage for travel between
cities and vicinity miles within a locality, the traveler must track actual
business miles based on a recognized GPS system. Travelers must document actual mileage to
each location travelled and attach documentation to the travel claim. As OMES audits travel claims the mileage
submitted will be compared to available GPS models such as MapQuest or Google
Maps for reasonableness. We recognize
that in some rural areas an actual GPS is not available and that occasionally
minor detours are necessary. Actual
miles per the odometer will suffice as long as no personal miles are included,
every travel point is documented, and the mileage is reasonably comparable to
GPS models used in the audits.
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P-CARD
The Statewide P-Card and Travel Office program has moved from Central Purchasing to Central Accounting and Reporting. There is no change in the contact information for this department.
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All FY17 P-Card Authority Orders must be set up prior to
July 1, 2016, to ensure continued usage of the P-cards. For any questions,
contact the P-card team at pcard@omes.ok.gov.
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LEGAL
This article supersedes 40.90.03 in the Statewide
Accounting Manual. Contracts for legal representation by state
agencies under the executive branch must be approved and/or received by the
Office of the State Attorney General (74 O.S. § 20i). In addition, as professional services, these
contracts will be subject to submission in accordance with the Oklahoma Central
Purchasing Act and the promulgated rules of the Central Purchasing Division of
the Office of Management and Enterprise Services. When an agency’s approving officer signs a
voucher, he or she is stating that the purchase is in compliance with the
state’s purchasing laws, including 74 O.S. § 20i. The AG’s office will be provided a list of
payments for legal services in order to monitor compliance with 74 O.S. § 20i.
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CAFR
GASB Statement
77 requires that certain information about tax abatement agreements be
disclosed in the state’s CAFR. This
includes agreements entered into by the state as well as agreements entered
into by other governments, such as cities or counties if the state is a party
to that agreement in some fashion. For
example, if the city offers a tax abatement for economic development but the
state has agreed to build a road as a part of the overall agreement, there are
disclosures that must be made. DCAR is
currently in the process of determining which agencies may have something to
include in this disclosure. If your agency has any involvement in agreements for economic development, in which a
tax abatement may be a part of that agreement contact Matt Clarkson at 405-521-2759
or matt.clarkson@omes.ok.gov.
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HIGHER EDUCATION ENTITIES
When monitoring the 789 fund, we are
looking to see if any institution has keyed deposits or transfers taking money
from the clearing account into the 789 fund. As discussed in the webinar
trainings, the only things that should hit the 789 fund are:
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PFT funding the payroll claim,
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Vouchers disbursing those funds to the
appropriate vendor or employee,
- PFT reversals and adjustments, or
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Journal entries the federal tax payments.
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Money for tax withholdings and other items that are
processed with payroll should be left in the 789 class funding and paid to
the appropriate vendor from there. If an amount in the 789 is for
something like a self-insurance premium or another deduction for which the
university is the appropriate vendor, it would be appropriate to write a
voucher to the university. Otherwise,
the payment should be made to the end recipient (Oklahoma Tax Commission,
Teachers Retirement System, credit unions, supplemental insurance providers,
garnishment vendors, child support, etc).
The 789 fund was set up to allow for reconciliation of payroll expenditures. If it is used appropriately, you should be able to
easily determine who has or has not been paid. Once you begin processing
payments to your institution for the withholdings and state shares, the reconciliation of future payments from the 700 fund becomes much more difficult and
we would be unable to help you reconcile should you have problems with not
having enough money in the 789.
Writing a check to the university to disburse from a 700
fund is not appropriate. This act
inflates your expenditures. When
reviewing an institution’s budget and expenditures, the 789 fund should be
considered an imprest type of account that does not actually have expenditures.
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