Hourly Employee Pay

It is the policy of the State of North Carolina that certain types of pay will be utilized by the payroll system which differentiates between appointment type and years of service. Certain employees are considered hourly employees by the payroll system and processed accordingly.

G.S. 126 State Personnel System

G.S. 143B-426.39 Powers and Duties of the State Controller

State Personnel Manual

Hourly employees are temporary employees, regardless of whether the hourly employee is placed in a permanent or temporary position. The employee's appointment is limited, normally not to exceed three to six months. The OSP can approve a longer employment period, but in no case can the temporary employment period exceed twelve consecutive months. Students and retired employees paid on an hourly basis are exempt from the twelve-month maximum limit, but retirees must meet special conditions. To be exempt, retired employees must sign a statement that they are not available for nor seek permanent employment.  Hourly employees do not earn any state benefits and are processed either semi-monthly or on the mid-month payroll cycles.

The statewide chart of accounts related to hourly temporary employees follows:

Hourly or temporary employees being paid from a permanent SPA or EPA position (commonly referred to as "work against") should be coded to the original position's account, even though the payment is not to a salaried employee (See the chart of accounts for salaried employees). Hourly or temporary employees are taxed according to the exemptions claimed on their W-4 and NC-4 withholding forms.

Certain special hourly pay types are processed as unique transactions. These include the Student, Summer School, and National Guard payrolls.

The Student payroll is used to pay students that are employed by and enrolled in an institution as full-time students.  Students are paid on the mid-month payroll cycle and are not subject to retirement or FICA tax.  The Student payroll is a non-repeating payroll that resets gross pay to zero each time the payroll is processed.  Student pay is charged to the following accounts:

When a student is no longer enrolled in the institution, the student is transferred to the temporary payroll, where the student becomes subject to FICA taxes.

The Summer School payroll is designed to process summer school faculty pay.  This is a repeating payroll that automatically accesses the retirement contribution and matching codes if the employee is paid by the same university during the regular school year.  For employees paid on the Summer School payroll that are not full-time faculty members of the school, the pay is coded not subject to retirement but subject to all other taxes.  The Summer School payroll is coded to the appropriate teaching salary account.

National Guardsmen are paid through the Central Payroll System when the Governor of the State of North Carolina calls the National Guard into active duty under G.S. 127A-16.  No documentation is processed through the Office of State Personnel system.  This payroll is a semi-monthly payroll that is subject to state and federal taxes but is exempt from FICA tax.  Gross salary and all tax deductions are entered into the Central Payroll System from a National Guard subsystem.  Transactions processed through the payroll system are coded to the following account:

The National Guard payroll is a non-repeating payroll that resets gross pay to zero each time the payroll is processed.

This policy applies to all State entities using the Central Payroll System.

There are no exceptions to this policy.

There are no special terms for this policy.