Dear Bargaining Unit 2 Member:
The CASE Board and staff have been pushing the State on a daily – and sometimes hourly – basis for information on the processing of the raises, and we have been insisting that they process the long overdue raises immediately. CASE has confirmed that all pay letters have finally been issued by CalHR, for both the General Salary Increase and the $260/month Healthcare Cash Benefit, and those pay instructions have been received by the State Controller’s Office.
This means that most members will receive a 2.75% salary increase in their December paycheck, as well as a separate check in December for the salary increase retroactive to July (i.e. an additional 2.75% of monthly gross for five months, July through November). The Controller’s Office indicated that the Healthcare Cash Benefit will have to be keyed in by the individual departments. CASE members work in more than 90 different state agencies, departments, boards, and commissions, and thus, there will likely be significant variation as to when the respective departments’ personnel staff complete the data entry necessary to process both the Healthcare Cash Benefit for December as well as the retroactive Healthcare Cash Benefit of $1300 (5 months x $260/month).
The direct information from the State Controller’s Office is:
Most members will receive their permanent GSI in their end of December pay warrants. As previously shared, the 2.75% retroactive payments will issue separately, but also in the December pay period for most members. There are some exceptions to this which will need to be processed by the HR offices. The SCO has run a mass update for Bargaining Unit 2, as well as two other bargaining units, and out of the 12,120 transactions, only 212 need to be handled as exceptions. HR offices will receive instructions in a pay letter we will send CASE after it is released. The healthcare supplemental subsidy won’t issue with the retro salary increases this month. The subsidy will be separate and it’s an item departments will have to key. Since the departments have to key the subsidy, the SCO is not in control of when they will issue. The W-2 will be dependent on when the departments key the payments. Any pay that is issued in the December 2019 pay period will be reflected on the 2019 W-2.
The CASE Board believes that these delays are entirely unacceptable, and that the State has utterly failed to justify the delay. The notion that California, as the fifth largest economy in the world, cannot process simple payroll changes without months of delay is an embarrassment for the State. The fact that other bargaining units are facing the same delays is of little consolation. It is our understanding that CHP, CSLEA, and IUOE are all experiencing similar delays with CalHR and the SCO. Please advise CASE if you have not received your retroactive salary payment at the end of December 2019.
With respect to the individual departments keying in the Healthcare Cash Benefit, CASE has retained former Assembly Speaker John A. Perez to reach out to the Secretary of the Government Operations Agency, Julie Lee, to request that she exercise her authority to direct that all departments in the administration direct all necessary resources to their personnel and transactions unit to input the necessary data immediately. We will continue to keep you updated as we learn more.
This email may not reach all CASE members. Accordingly, CASE encourages you to pass this email along to any of your colleagues who may not have received it. If you are not receiving CASE emails and wish to receive future communications from CASE, please send an email to info@calattorneys.org and request to be added to the distribution list.
CASE also encourages you to send responses from your personal email address as opposed to your state email address. Please keep in mind that all responses will be treated as confidential by CASE.
As always, your support of CASE and your colleagues in Bargaining Unit 2 is greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
The CASE Board of Directors