UHPA Making Sure Your Dues Deductions are Accurate

From UHPA, August 30, 2018

The last four faculty paychecks illustrated the problems within DAGS and the ongoing issues when a state agency doesn’t know UHPA and takes some authority away from UH payroll. A brief recap of the mistakes that UHPA identified and ensured there were corrections.

Pursuant to the U.S. Supreme Court Janus v AFSCME decision effective June 27, 2018, dues deduction from nonmembers were to end. On July 5, the Department of Accounting & General Services (DAGS) deducted dues from UHPA nonmembers and no dues deduction were made from members. The dues from nonmembers, which were inappropriately deducted, were deposited to an escrow account established by UHPA. UHPA notified DAGS of their error. DAGS was unable to refund dues from nonmembers deducted from July 27 – June 30. UHPA prepared checks for the refund and checks were mailed to all nonmembers on August 3.

On July 20, DAGS again deducted union dues from UHPA nonmembers. The nonmembers’ dues portion was deposited into the UHPA escrow account. Refunds were made by DAGS with the Aug 5 pay check. UHPA members’ dues deduction was deducted as SD725 and SD726 to correct the mistakes made earlier.

UHPA identified further issues with the August 5 payroll, for those UHPA members whose monthly salary ended in an odd amount, $1.00 was added to the dues deduction instead of $.01. The $.99 correction was made by DAGS on Aug 20.

On August 20, UHPA noticed that 9 month faculty received their negotiated pay increase but DAGS did not recalculate the dues. You will see the DAGS correction on your Sept 5 pay check.

The series of incidents have been frustrating for both UHPA staff and members affected by DAGS’ mistakes. UHPA filed a Prohibited Practice with the Hawaii Labor Relations Boards seeking to remedy these problems and ensure the State is compliant with their obligations under the Hawaii collective bargaining law. UHPA is seeking a resolution that will establish a clear procedure that ensures accuracy for dues collection by DAGS.

---30---

ILind: Rollout of new state payroll system almost complete