Delta State University Policies

Additional Compensation Pay

POLICY STATEMENT

Delta State University’s Additional Compensation Pay Policy exists to provide standards and guidelines for requesting and granting employees with supplemental assignments and pay in accordance with federal, state, and university laws, policies and procedures.

DEFINITIONS

Employee: This generally includes faculty and staff employees who are working on paid appointments by the University. It generally excludes students or temporary employees. For specific information on who is considered an employee, contact the Human Resources Department.

Supervisor: An employee designated by management who exercises major supervisory functions over another employee or employees. These functions include hiring, evaluating, assigning work, and disciplining employees.

Additional Compensation: Additional Compensation/Supplemental Pay is defined as compensation to employees above their primary contract with the University for work performed outside their primary duties and work hours. Supplemental Pay also applies to duties undertaken or assigned that are beyond the ordinary duties performed or stated in the University employee’s job description.

Examples of supplemental pay from university funds are listed as follows: pay for instruction, administrative assignments, interim assignments, stipend for honorary positions, additional pay for meritorious performance, bonus or award pay, workshops and trainings, overloads, internal and external grants stipends, etc.

PROCEDURES and RESPONSIBILITIES

General
In all cases, extra or supplemental compensation must be approved through the appropriate administrative channels. A faculty, staff or adjunct employee cannot in any circumstance be the sole determinant of his or her own additional compensation. With appropriate approvals, University employees may receive additional compensation for extra duties, as long as these extra services do not conflict with the employee’s primary committed position.

In general all payments for the compensation of services that are made to University employees will be treated as employee’s wages. This includes both amounts of base pay, as well as supplemental payments of compensation made to University employees for services that they provide to the University that are outside the normal scope of their employee appointment.

Supplemental Pay for Faculty

Faculty whose primary appointment is for the academic year are presumed to be engaged to the extent necessary in fulfilling teaching, research, and service obligations inherent in their academic appointments. For academic or administrative duties assigned beyond the scope of their academic appointments, faculty may receive supplemental payment, with appropriate prior approvals by the respective dean and provost – whether such duties are performed within the home department or for another department on campus. (Examples include duties such as teaching overloads, presenting sessions for the Graduate and Continuing Education programs, and working with grant initiatives.)

Additional compensation will not be paid if the employee’s regular responsibilities are reduced by the percentage necessary to accommodate the additional teaching and educational administrative responsibilities.

Supplemental Pay for Administrative Employees, Exempt, and Non-Exempt Employees

There may be occasions where a current employee may be the most appropriate person to undertake a specialized assignment on a temporary basis and supplemental pay is appropriate. Supplemental pay compensation may include, but is not limited to stipends and honoraria. Such supplemental pay may be provided through restricted (grant) or unrestricted (institutional) funds, provided such funds are available.

Non-Exempt employees are paid on an hourly basis for hours worked. Hours worked in excess of 40 hours must be compensated at time and a half. Time worked on supplemental assignments is not a separate entity but a combination of the regular job and supplemental duties and will be computed as such.

When a non-exempt employee works two jobs at two different rates of pay, a blended overtime rate will be calculated, in which the hours worked at each rate are combined to determine a weighted average rate of pay. The employee is then paid overtime at time and one half that weighted average for all overtime hours worked.

Supplemental Pay for Exempt and Non-Exempt Employees Under Grant-Funded Initiatives

Occasionally, grant-funded initiatives may require additional support from staff to perform certain tasks and/or activities. Supplemental pay for both exempt and nonexempt staff utilizing restricted grant funds must be an allowable cost based on the guidelines of the grant agreement and must be consistent with the College’s policies and procedures as outlined within this policy statement.

Guidelines for Supplemental Pay:

  • It is expected that Professional/Administrative employees’ working hours, duties, and responsibilities to the University may vary. Such variations are not a basis for additional pay.

  • Vice Presidents are not eligible for supplemental compensation without justification and prior approval of the President. Deans are not eligible for supplemental compensation without justification and prior approval of the Provost.

  • Chairs and Directors are only eligible for supplemental compensation with written justification and prior approval of the Dean/Supervisor and the Vice President.

  • Supplemental work must not conflict with employees’ contractual responsibilities to the University. The assignment to be performed is at a time totally separate and apart from the employee’s normal and usual working hours and will not interfere with the performance of regularly assigned teaching, research, administrative, or other duties.

  • Supplemental compensation is only allowed if it is determined that the provision of release time to perform the work is not practical.

  • Requests for retroactive supplemental payment are acceptable only with written justification.

  • The duties to be performed should be clearly differentiated from the types of duties the individual normally performs in his/her job description.

  • Normally, the duties should not be performed on a continuing basis.

  • If additional duties performed are teaching duties, no more than two 3-credit courses (or their equivalent) may be taught in a semester. Generally, this teaching responsibility must be carried out during times other than the normal working hours established for the full-time employment responsibility. However, in extraordinary circumstances, when the teaching responsibility must take place during the course of the employee’s normal working hours, such exceptions must be approved in advance by the respective director and vice president. If the arrangement is approved, an alternative work schedule must be approved and forwarded with the appropriate assignment documentation for inclusion in the employee’s official personnel record. If the alternative work schedule is disapproved, the employee may not receive supplemental pay for the teaching assignment.

  • Non teaching work should not be performed for the supervisor/department head for whom the staff member regularly works. Exceptions to this include when extraordinary effort is required of the staff person for project work that is in addition to or outside of one’s normal scope of responsibilities such as consulting, researching, writing and or analysis or for temporarily assuming significant additional job responsibilities due to the vacancy of another staff position. In these cases, the Human Resources Department should be consulted regarding the amount of additional compensation.

  • A staff member’s participation in a project that involves extra compensation from another University’s department should have prior approval for the participation and the amount of extra compensation from the staff member’s supervisor or department head and divisional Vice President.
All exceptions to this policy require written justification and the appropriate approval as defined below:

Approval Process

Advanced approval is required through administrative channels. This approval process includes the employee’s chair/supervisor, the employee’s dean and/or vice president. All requests must be submitted on an Employment Action Form along with the Supplemental Payment Request form and specify the nature of the work/activity to be performed, an estimate of the time required, and the supplemental pay amount.

Amount of Pay


Amount of pay for most extra faculty assignments has been established by the department chair and approved by the dean and provost, or the respective supervisor/vice president. These include advising, course overload teaching, and summer school teaching. Some extra assignments, such as course development, may be negotiated. It is the responsibility of the hiring department to document the basis for the pay amount. Overload teaching payments are limited to the standard contract amount offered to part-time faculty based on a pay scheduled maintain by the Office of Academic Affairs. It is the responsibility of department chairs, deans, directors, or other unit leaders to ensure that pay amounts are equitable among employees and commensurate with established pay rates for the actual work to be performed.

Pay for Work on Grants and External Contracts

Contracts and grants have special provisions. Employees who are receiving any part of their compensation from a federal grant or other sponsored program should verify their eligibility to receive extra pay with the grants administrator in University Accounting before accepting additional assignments for pay.
In general, federal grants do not allow for payment of supplemental salary. Based on how the grant was approved, all or a portion of the employee’s regular salary may be paid by a grant. Supplemental pay is generally prohibited during the employee’s regular appointment period.

Employees who work less than 12 months per year in their regular appointments (examples include 9 month academic year faculty, and 10 or 11 month calendar appointments) may be eligible to receive payments for work on grants during the period outside their regular appointment.


Method of Payment and Deductions

Payment will be processed as compensation to the employee (and not as payments to independent contractors) through the payroll system and will have federal and state taxes and other appropriate deductions withheld. Payments will be identified (to the extent the payroll system will permit) as supplemental pay above the amount paid as base salary. Mandatory employer contributions for fringe benefits must be funded from the same source as the supplemental pay.

Adjunct Faculty
 
Effective with the Spring 2009 semester, during fall or spring semester, adjunct faculty may teach a maximum of six (6) semester credit hours of graduate coursework or nine (9) semester credit hours of undergraduate coursework.
Overloads
During the fall or spring semester, full-time faculty, who are teaching a full-time load, are allowed to teach a maximum of  three (3) semester credit hours of graduate coursework or six (6) semester credit hours of undergraduate coursework as overload.

Summer School

During Summer Session, payment is limited to two (2) for-credit courses per session, for a summer total of four (4) courses. Only in rare circumstances would a two-course summer session load be exceeded. In all cases salary paid must be within the appropriate compensation maximum. Unless Summer Session is conducted during the period of non-contract, certification must be provided that these duties would be performed outside of the employee’s normal duties and hours.

Responsible Office and/or the Policy Owner:  Office of Academic Affairs/Human Resources

RELATED DOCUMENTS

None

STATUS

Active

DATE(S)

Revised:

  • Academic Council: 04/22/2014
  • Approved by Cabinet: 05/08/2014