County employees due to get a pay raise with the recent passage of the new budget by the county commission, can expect those raises to be included in their next paychecks.
After recently discovering that the 2011-12 fiscal year covers a leap year, County Mayor Mike Foster said some re-figuring had to be done to accommodate 27 bi-weekly pay periods instead of the traditional 26. “We had figured the pay raises like any normal year. Every normal year has 26 pay periods in it because its every two weeks. But this year, due to leap year and because the last pay date for the last year ending June 30 fell on July 1, which counted in the 2011-12 year, that made us have 27 pay periods. All the salaries were already figured (in the new budget) at 26 pay periods but when we found out that there were 27 pay periods, it through everything out of kilter. We talked to CTAS and several other people in the state and county audit division and found out we would have to do 27 pay periods. That’s what they told us to do. So everything had to be re-figured. The pay raises will be on the next pay check and retroactive back to July 1st,” said Foster.
Typically, salaried employees receive a certain amount of pay a year, and each bi-weekly paycheck represents a portion of that total. In order to accommodate the extra pay period, paychecks of salaried employees will most likely have to be adjusted (reduced) but they will get the full salary for the year to which they are entitled.
Foster said this will only affect salaried employees .”If they are hourly, their pay is based on the time sheet that their department head sends in so it won’t affect them at all. The ones who are salaried people will get 27 checks instead of 26,” said Foster.
This situation is not unique to DeKalb County. Foster said other county governments who pay their salaried employees on a bi-weekly cycle are facing the same circumstances.
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