PPMS Meeting Minutes
May 12, 2015
Columbia Basin College – Richland
1. PPMS Business Information
a. Treasurer’s Report - Kristina Hutchinson
i. Sent out via e-mail for members to review
b. Recognition of Patsy Rammel, Pierce College, and her contributions as HCA Liaison
c. Future Meetings Proposed – Dates to follow
i. Fall – Clover Park
ii. Winter – Everett
iii. Spring – Walla Walla
d. Need volunteer for IT collaborator for Blackboard/Illuminate – open item
e. Prior Chairs were recognized for all the hard work they have done for PPMS group
2. Committee Updates
a. DRS Advisory - Sheryl Gordon
i. Unable to attend – no report
ii. Appointed position so she remains as PPMS representative
b. HCA Liaison - Patsy Rammel
i. Employer’s cost will increase 7/1/15, proposed is $850 - $925
ii. Tobacco surcharge to increase to $100 a month effective 7/1/15
iii. HCA changed language for retirement, term to term
iv. Requested changes to current Enrollment/Change Form
i. Need two distinct forms: New Enrollment and Change Enrollment
ii. Asked Spousal questions be moved so Questions 1 -4 were easier to answer when doing
data entry
iii. Currently, Adjunct Faculty (part-time) must redo forms as eligibility changes, request
this be reviewed and improved
v. Committee comprised of John Boesenberg and Anne Sinnes, SBCTC.
i. Committee does teleconferencing with Amy from HCA
a. Karsten Caesar, Bellevue College, volunteered to be chair for coming year
b. Two volunteers to join committee for coming year
i. East of Mountain – Mona Himmelberger, Walla Walla
ii. West of Mountain – Beverly Havens, Skagit Valley
c. Agenda Committee
i. Current members: Elise Mayes, Lynn Melton and Anne Sinnes, SBCTC
ii. Elise Mayes, emayes@everettcc.edu, would like to remain on the committee
iii. Please submit training suggestions for inside/outside PPMS training to Kathy Eldred, Skagit
Valley. We have money for training.
iv. Breakout sessions for this spring meeting were well received
v. If you want to volunteer to lead a training session at PPMS, please contact one of the committee
members
d. HRMC Liaison – Beth Brooks, Tacoma Community College
i. HRMC discussed impact of Title IV, equity in education
i. WAC revisions needed
ii. VAWA, Violence Against Women Act
iii. GoLive date now moved to August, 2015
iv. Presidents of TCC and Spokane met recently with Barbara Martens, to understand where they
are in the process
v. TCC is asking for help with testing. Whatcom will help.
vi. Diversity recruitment, Green River, Highline and Bellevue are working on how to do better
recruitment.
vii. HRMC wants to know how best to support PPMS group
i. There is a lack of communication between two groups
ii. Provide better opportunities to PPMS users
a. Funding for Certification for Professional Payroll
b. Professional development
c. Customer Service training to Payroll, Benefits, and HR
viii. Each college is deciding how to fund pay increase once approved by Legislature
ix. HR recognizes their first job is to support their staff
i. SHERM has training/webinars that are cost effective
ii. Next HRMC meeting is in Spokane in August
iii. Fall meeting is at Whatcom
x. Encourage more users to attend PPMS meetings
xi. How will focus of groups change when we go to PeopleSoft?
i. Work with HRMC to have meetings coincide or overlap to share resources
ii. Maybe have half-day trainings to make it easier for users to leave work and attend
xii. TCC ran test. PeopleSoft did not recognize CBA and that employees must be in paid status prior
to holiday to be paid holiday. Everyone was paid. TCC wants two full parallel test payrolls.
xiii. Found linkage problems: Finance can’t go forward until Payroll fixes some things.
xiv. At this stage, don’t know what they don’t know. How are all the pillars interconnected? Still
finding out.
xv. Might be good to have Dennis Colgan, CtcLink Wave Coordinator, come explain things.
i. Responsible for coordinating the Wave 1 college activities that lead up to retiring the
legacy systems (such as PPMS) and switching over to the new system. There is a lot of
prep work, data cleanup, etc. involved.
3. Election Results
a. Kathy Eldred, Chair, Skagit Valley College, Kathy.eldred@skagit.edu
b. Tammy Danielson, Co-Chair, Peninsula College, tdanielson@pencol.edu
c. Samantha Soto, Secretary, South Puget Sound CC, ssoto@spscc.edu
d. Mona Himmelberger, Walla Walla Community College, Treasurer, mona.himmelberger@wwcc.edu
4. Presentation of VOE template by Jim Craswell, Bellevue College, james.craswell@bellevuecollege.edu
a. Set up an automated standardized Verification of Employment form
b. He created a query using the ODS database, just type in SID and form is filled
c. Fill in your name, title and contact information
d. It breaks down Base Rate, Overtime, Stipend and Other for current year and one prior, three years back
just has total wages.
e. Provides form for Faculty, Adjunct, Exempt, Classified and Hourly
f. Contact Jim and he’ll send you information to give to your IT department.
5. CTCLink Update
a. Slide Show presentation from Jameeka Scott, Sam E Sayed and Brian Lanier
i. Sent out on list serve
b. Provided GoLive dates:
i. FirstLink colleges: 8/24/15
ii. Wave 1: August 2016
iii. Wave 2, 9 months after Wave 1, May or August 2017
iv. Wave 3, 9 months after Wave 2
v. Each of the FirstLink colleges identified some records to run side by side test.
i. Some issues
a. Deductions not all accurate
b. Federal withholding tax not accurate
vi. Question and Answers
i. When will information be sent out for creating Exempt and Faculty tables?
a. It is coming
ii. When test was run, what was the level of acceptance?
a. Still to be decided
iii. What issues were there with multiple pay cycles?
a. Problem encountered with paying semi-monthly (S3) and monthly (M3) on same
payroll. Working to fix that
iv. Are account codes attached to jobs yet?
a. Still working on that
v. How are other pillars doing?
a. Financial Aid passed cycle 8. Not really sure about the others.
vi. Why no weekly meetings for HCM stakeholders?
a. Not enough time for all to be involved, just FirstLink colleges and CTCLink
b. Will resume when it is time, list serve will be sent information
vii. Information for CTCLink training.
a. https://training.ctclink.sbctc.edu/
6. John Boesenberg, Deputy Executive Director, Human Resources, SBCTC
a. He asked for feedback regarding the TIAA- CREF ITV training he hosted.
i. Might do more of these in the future
b. In 2011, state laws changed to connect the SBRP more closely with DRS administered plans.
i. Retirement eligible, have 30 days to make choice
ii. Effective date is the date the employee submits his/her choice. Contributions should be taken
from the first available pay check. Colleges should give employees the full 30 days to make the
choice – so choice period begins when the notice of eligibility is given to the employee.
c. Retire/Rehire
i. “Retirement Date” is defined as the date benefit payments begin. Can be eligible to retire at
age 55 for TIAA-CREF.
ii. From a plan and IRS perspective Phased retirement is not considered “retirement” but is simply
a modified work schedule.
i. To participate in the Phased Retirement Program, participants must be in TIAA-CREF for
10 years and be age 59 1/2
iii. If taking retirement distributions, retirees must be have a six months/two quarters break in
service before they can be rehired.
d. If employee annuitizes or rolls funds out of the plan, the State Board no longer has authority to stop
benefit payments. However, the Plan policy is that, outside of the Phased Retirement Program and
Hardship distributions, employees who take a retirement distribution must wait 6-months or 2 quarters
before returning to work. VEBA payout but not terminating in TIAA-CREF. What does retirement look
like?
i. What has your college defined retirement as?
ii. Do you have a written policy?
a. PTF may have sick leave but never qualified for HCA benefits.
b. Advice - Apply sick leave cash out consistently, regardless of employee type.
iii. Post separation HRA plan.
i. For employees not in a qualified health care plan – like PEBB, Tricare, etc.
ii. Retirees whose funds are sent to the Post separation plan cannot access their VEBA
funds if they return to work for the same employer that made the contributions.
e.
f.
g.
h.
i.
j.
k.
iv. Retired, put money into VEBA, can access VEBA plans if in Standard HRA Plan
v. Questions were asked about the ability to cash out sick leave multiple times in situations where
employees retire, return to work and begin to accrue sick leave. Some college allow this
practice; some limit an employee to “retiring” only once.
State Board Plan
i. Will be working with a consultant to re-write and file our Plan Document with the IRS for review.
At this time, planning on separating the supplemental benefits provisions into a separate plan
document resulting in three plans documents: primary SBRP, voluntary (SBVIP), and the
supplemental benefit plan
ii. Currently working with State Actuary
i. Valuation of liability related to supplemental benefits
ii. Estimation of when supplemental benefits could be paid from the HERP fund instead of
current budget
Legislative Bills
i. HB1168 – state law correcting restrictions on collecting a pension in the public employees'
retirement system for retirees returning to work in an ineligible position or a position covered
by a different state retirement system. This part of the 2011 law was not enforced by DRS
(Under changes made in 2011, PERS retirees where not eligible to work 867 hours before
benefits stopped. However, as noted, this provision was viewed as an error and was not
enforced.)
ii. SB5466 – Made corrections in HCA laws. Related to CTCs, it clarified definition of halftime by
referring to RCW requiring colleges to calculate the percentage of full time for part-time faculty
by using in-class/lab hours paid from the part-time faculty salary schedule
Averaging
i. 1996 law passed with strong union support required use of in-class teaching /lab hours not paid
from full-time salary schedule to calculate percentage of full time.
ii. For two-year averaging, cannot use workload for PTF if the PTF was paid from the full time
schedule. If full or part-time faculty work worked at least half-time for one year receive summer
benefits. Bottom line is that you cannot calculate the percentage of full time for part-time
faculty using workload paid from the full time schedule.
Operating Budget Proposals
i. Pay Increase for employees
ii. House proposes a 3% and 1.8% increase for all employees and fully funds its
iii. Senates propose distribution of $1000 per year for non-I-732 employees and funds colleges for
85% of the cost. They provide I-732 employees a COLA of 1.8% in 2015 and an estimated 2.1%
in 2016.
iv. Not anticipating an agreement to this budget this special session, ending May 28
v. Colleges may need to decide to keep doors open or lay employees off if operating budget isn’t
adopted by June 30. E-mail coming from State Board soon.
Senate is also trying to reduce the health care costs by not allowing spouse coverage if they are covered
by another employer’s plan and by reducing the retiree subsidy.
ACA Special Unpaid Leave Survey
i. Next survey is coming out mid-July.
ii. Track unpaid FMLA, Military and Jury duty leave
Unemployment Benefits and Academic Year.
i. Employee/Student counts for two years.
ii. They determine academic year: 12 months versus 9 months.
iii. For 9-month colleges, employee shouldn’t get unemployment if college provides “reasonable
assurance”