HR News Updates | December 2020

The Fall 2020 Academic Semester Officially ends on Wednesday, December 23, 2020. The University will be closed Friday, December 25 through Friday, January 1, 2021 reopening on Monday, January 4, 2021. Thursday, December 31st is not a covered holiday; eligible employees may charge their accrued leave time such as vacation, Personal Holiday, or, when eligible, Compensatory Time Off. Employees may also elect to take leave without pay on this day. Other provisions may also apply for some of our union partners; please see the relevant collective bargaining agreement for further information.

University Holiday Calendar

W-2s will be issued in January by the State Controller's Office and mailed to the address on record in SOLAR HR as of close of business, Monday, December 14, 2020.

If your mailing address has changed, please go online today and update your records through the myNorthridge portal. In the Human Resources/Employee pagelet, use the link labeled Update My Personal Information to change your address.

If you haven't already done so, visit our LifeMatters@CSUN website to learn about all of the services and resources available to you and your family/household members as part of your Employee Assistance Program benefit. 

You can access the LifeMatters website on your desktop, or mobile device. Visit https://www.mylifematters.com/.

Monthly Webinar

In addition, LifeMatters hosts monthly Webinars. Most Webinars are live, and some are posted for download. 

This month's live webinar, Embracing You: The Power of Acceptance, discusses how to avoid overly critical thinking, embrace you as you, and value acceptance in daily living.

Join us Wednesday, December 16, 2020. You have two options to Participate: 
9:00 - 10:00 a.m.  or 12:00 - 1:00 p.m. 
To register, click on the time slot above that you wish to attend, or go to mylifematters.com/my/webinars and log in using the password "Matadors."  You must register prior to the start of the webinar in order to attend.

Wednesday, December 16, 2020 - 11:00 a.m. to 11:20 a.m.

Location:

Online

Facilitated by:

CalPERS Staff

Description:

How does Medicare work with your CalPERS health benefits? Understanding how your health benefits and Medicare work together can sometimes be confusing. Join us in this informative webinar, where we will cover the different parts of Medicare along with when and how to coordinate benefits.

Registration:

CalPERS Webinar Registration

In order to remain consistent with current live paycheck distribution procedures during the COVID-19 pandemic, our year-end master pay warrant distribution process occurring on December 31, 2020 will be as such:

Live checks pre-authorized for in-person pick-up, or belonging to PPM staff, will be distributed at University Cash Services (UCS) in Bayramian Hall on Thursday, December 31, 2020, between the hours of 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM. You must present your CSUN ID or a government issued ID.

All employees not on direct deposit or without a pre-authorization for in-person pick-up, will have their state payroll checks mailed out via U.S. Mail on December 31, 2020.

In order to ensure timely receipt of paychecks, please login to the myNorthridge portal and verify that your home address is accurate. You can do this by navigating to the Staff tab and accessing the Human Resources/Employee pagelet. In the pagelet, select update my personal info.

Effective January, 1, 2021, the California Minimum Wage will be increased to $14.00.  All active employees below the new minimum will be raised to $14.00.  These changes will be applied by Human Resources; no additional data entry or action by the department is required.

Please Note: If a department wants to provide an increase to a student employee's hourly rate outside of the minimum wage adjustment, presidential approval is required.

The following information is provided for staff members responsible for transacting the hiring and processing of academic personnel.

Spring 2021 Academic Personnel Hiring and Processing

The Spring 2021 Academic Personnel Hiring Memo is available here. Following are some highlights:

Save the Date:  Plan to tune in Tuesday, January 12^th from 9-10 AM for our Spring 2021 Webinar with Erick Cuevas!

Register Here!

The Part Time Faculty module is updated and ready for Spring 2021 hiring as of Tuesday, December 2, 2020. 

Dates are:

1. Lecturers (2358) and Teaching Associates (2354)- Start 01/20/2021 and End 05/26/2021
2. Graduate Assistants (2355) – Start 02/01/2021 and End 06/30/2021

Part Time Faculty, Teaching Associate and Graduate Assistant Module entry deadlines:

1. Keying: Thursday, 01/28/2021
2. Approval: Friday, 01/29/2021

New Employee Sign-ins:

1. No later than the effective date of the appointment
2. Example: Lecturers who start effective 01/20/2021 must have signed in by that date
3. Sign-ins are conducted by appointment only. Please e-mail hrcustomerservice@csun.edu to schedule an appointment for any new faculty or student employee. Additionally, attach a copy of the New Employee Sign-In Form to your appointment request e-mail. This form is generally provided to you by the hiring department. You will receive a response from our HR Customer Service Team within 48 hours, Monday - Friday.

As a California State University (CSU) employee, your pay check/direct deposit advice and annual W-2 are issued (hard copy) by the State Controller’s Office (SCO). Until now, these hard copy documents have been the only means made available to you by the SCO as a record of your earnings.

CSUN employees now have the opportunity to access this information and forms through Cal Employee Connect (CEC) which allows employees to view up to three (3) years of their earnings statements and W-2’s, along with personal information. Cal Employee Connect reduces state costs and workload by providing a tool for all state employees to access their earnings information electronically.

The statements available in CEC provide continuity to the statements previously printed by the SCO. CEC offers a range of tools to help you view your earnings, including a feature to compare statements side-by-side.
To learn more about CEC and how to view pay warrant and W-2 information, visit Cal Employee Connect.

The 2021 Health Plan Rates are available on the Benefits Administration webpage.

Please remember to check your January pay warrant for your premium deduction and report any discrepancies to your Benefits Representative. If you made any changes during the Fall 2020 Open Enrollment Period, your new plan(s) and premium should be reflected on your January 2021 pay warrant. In addition, you should receive written confirmation from your health plan and identification cards (as applicable) in mid-December. Watch out for these in your home mailbox.

As a reminder, you can view your benefit elections under the Benefits Summary and the Dependent and Beneficiary Coverage Summary in the portal. If you submitted forms to make changes as part of Open Enrollment, change the date to 1/1/2021 and select Go.

Employees that would like to make changes to their tax withholding options for federal and state income taxes may submit these electronically through the myNorthridge portal. Once logged on, navigate to the “Staff” tab and select the “Tax Withholding Change Form” in the “Human Resources/Employee” pagelet.

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Complete and submit the form at least 15 business days prior to your next payday for the change to take effect during the current reporting period.

As a reminder, CSU policy restricts student assistant work time. In addition, the Internal Revenue Service guidelines for student assistants to remain exempt from social security and Medicare deductions, limits their normal working hours to 20 during the school year. An exception is allowed during winter inter-session, spring break, and summer session.

The following information is provided as we approach the Winter Break and transition between semesters.

• During the Academic Semester (please see CSUN campus academic calendar), Student Assistants may work up to, but not in excess of, 20 hours per week total in all positions combined.
• The end of the Fall semester, as indicated on the Academic Calendar, is Wednesday, December 24th. The campus is closed from December 25th through January 1st.
• The allowed hours for the week of 12/21/20 are 20. If the campus is not closed on Thursday, December 24th, the allowed hours of work for that day would be 4 hours.
• If a department wants to provide an increase to a student employee's hourly rate outside of the minimum wage adjustment, presidential approval is required.

Split Weeks

When the academic semester starts, or ends, in the middle of a work week it is a “split” week.

The first day of the Spring 2021 semester is Wednesday, January 20th. The allowed hours for the week of 1/18/21 through 1/22/21 are:

• Monday = 8 hours
• Tuesday = 8 hours
• Wednesday = 8 hours
• Thursday = 4 hours
• Friday = 4 hours
• Total hours that can be worked in this “split” week scenario is 32 hours

Your CalPERS Annual Member Statement shows an accounting of your retirement-related work history as reported by your employer.

You can view your Annual Member Statements by logging in to your MyCalPERS account.

Is it time for a Financial Wellness Check-up? The CSU offers you additional ways to save for your future.

For the 2021 tax year, the contribution limits are unchanged $19,500 to a 403(b) or 401(k) plan, subject to the 415(c) limit, AND $19,500 to a governmental 457(b) plan, for a total contribution of up to $39,000.

To view additional information on our Retirement and Savings Programs, please view the Savings Plus Program page for information on the 401(k) and 457 plan, or the CSU Supplemental Retirement Plan page for information on the CSU 403(b) plan. You can get started here.

Dependent Re-verification (DRV) is the process of re-verifying the eligibility of your spouse, domestic partner, children, stepchildren, and domestic partner children (family members) enrolled for state health and dental benefits. Government Code section 22843.1 mandates re-verifying the eligibility of your family members. Government Code section 22959 authorizes extending this review to your family members enrolled for dental benefits.

• The eligibility of your family members will be re-verified once every three years. The re-verification period is based on your birth month. Employees born during the following months are required to re-verify family members during 2021: January, April, July and October.
• For those employees with birthdays in January, you do not need to send in the Dependent Eligibility Verification Affidavit mailed to you by CalPERS. As a sustainable and convenient alternative, you will receive an email from Adobe Sign. From that email, you can complete your required Dependent Eligibility Verification Affidavit and attached the required documents.  Please complete and submit your required documents prior to December 31, 2020, in order for your dependent(s) to continue receiving health coverage and avoid cancellation on 2/1/2021.

For more information visit the following page: Health Care Dependent Re-Verification

HR is pleased to share that a new CSUN Employee Demographics Dashboard tool is available via the myNorthridge Portal.

To access the dashboard, log into the myNorthridge Portal; in the Staff tab, navigate to the Data Spectrum pagelet, and select CSUN HR Employee Demographics.

This new feature provides data as of close of business the day before, as well as November 1, and April 1 of each year going back to November 1, 2015.

The new Demographics dashboard will replace the pdf “Employee Demographics” static data which was hosted on Human Resources Career’s page. 

At the end of each December, the CSU pulls data from each campus to analyze adherence to compliance training requirements for the following courses:

• Conflict of Interest
• CSU's Sexual Misconduct Prevention Program (Title IX) - Gender Equity in Education
• CSU's Discrimination Harassment Prevention Program for Supervisors and Non-Supervisors

If you have a reminder for past due or soon to expire training, please take a few minutes and complete that training in CSU Learn before December 31. Questions or issues with accessing a training can be send to CSU-Learn@csun.edu. Thank you!

COVID-19 Related Leaves for Employees

There are currently three leave options available for employees: COVID Paid Administrative Leave (CPAL), Emergency Paid Sick Leave (EPSLA), and Emergency Family and Medical Leave Expansion (EFMLEA).

Due to the distinct options available, for any time off related to COVID-19 managers and employees should reach out to Karyn Cote, Leave Specialist at Karyn.Cote@csun.edu to consult on which leave type they qualify for and to obtain the appropriate leave form. To read more information about the leave options available to employees for COVID-19 related reasons and other resources, visit the COVID-19 Information for Faculty/Staff page.

Check Out Resources for HR Services Provided Virtually and Working Remotely Resources

Human Resources is offering services remotely. Check out how we can help you and explore the latest updates related to COVID-19:

Virtual HR Services 

Resources abound to help you successfully work remotely, build a work-life balance, and maintain yours and your family's emotional, and physical well-being: 

Working Remotely

You can find additional information on the COVID-19 Information for Faculty & Staff website:

COVID-19 FAQs