Updates for Payroll Coordinators

Hello Boston University Payroll Coordinators and Financial Managers,

We hope the start of the semester is going well and thank you for all your dedicated work to set up your students for Fall. We wanted to share a few important updates and reminders.

Student Work Hours for Employment Policy:

Students are limited to 20 hours of work per week during the academic year. Please review the Student Work Hours Policy to ensure your students are aware of and compliant with the weekly hours restriction.

BUGWU 3% Increases: 

According to the contract, all stipends and hourly wages within the BUGWU job types receive a 3% increase each year, effective September 1. This increase is applied even if schools have previously chosen to pay their students a higher rate than the minimum. SEO audited the hires and updated salaried and hourly pay rates not adjusted to the new minimum prior to the payroll that ran September 8.  
What we need from you:  
  • Please conduct your own internal audit for this week’s payroll to make sure your students were not under/overpaid after those increases were implemented. Corrections can be made in Fiori and retroed back to September 1 for anyone that was mistakenly increased or missed in the audit and central processing.  
  • Any students hired after September 8 will need to be manually increased to the new minimum or 3% by you or someone in your department. SEO will not be doing additional updates for you.  
  • Communicate to your students about the difference in their paychecks from August 25 and September 1. You are welcome to use the below guidance to send to your students if they have questions:  

Communication Guidance for BUGWU Students: 

The BUGWU contract agreement has an annual 3% pay rate increase effective September 1 each year for salaried and hourly graduate workers in the union. The initial week of Fall semester is prior to the September 1 increase date and so was paid out at the 2024/2025 rate. 
  • If your start date was August 25, you would have one week at the current rate and subsequent paychecks would be at the updated rate.  
  • If your start date was September 1 or later, you would have been hired at the updated rate.   
  • Please refer to your salary statement for details. Information on accessing and understanding your salary statement can be found on the Student Employment Office website.
    Week Of Payment Date Pay Rate
    August 25 – August 31 September 5 Current rate for 2024-2025
    September 1 – September 8 September 12 Updated rate with 3% increase for 2025-2026

Update to Payment Processing for some Student Employees:

Going forward, paper checks will no longer be automatically released when a student’s mailing address is missing from the system. If an address is not on file, the payment will still be acknowledged in the system; however, the student will be notified to update their mailing address for payroll purposes and submit direct deposit information online. Once the student updates their information, any prior pending payments will be processed and delivered according to the preferred payment method selected.

Students that already have active direct deposit setups and accurate mailing addresses will not need to take any action for this payroll update.

When onboarding new students, please remind them to set up their direct deposit and mailing address as soon as possible upon receiving their hire confirmation.

SEO Town Halls:

SEO will be offering two in-person Town Halls, on October 8 (CRC) and October 9 (Med Campus), from 3-5 pm. Please hold these dates/times. Locations, invites to RSVP, and Q&A submission information will be coming shortly.

We are grateful for your continued work and support of our students. Please reach out to SEO with any questions.

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