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Student paychecks now biweekly

Change made because NU was in violation of state law for 43 years

By Samantha Waggoner

On October 7, 2009

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After being out of compliance with Vermont state law for 43 years, Norwich University switched this fall from a monthly to a bi-weekly payment system for student employees, according to personnel from the payroll and human resource offices.

"There were some questions this summer on the timing of payments which caused us to look again at the laws and what the provisions were," said Jay W. Wisner, Norwich University's director of human resources. "It became clear that we needed to make a change."

This new payment system was effective on Aug. 1.

It has been a long-standing policy for summer school that faculty could not receive their paychecks until they handed in their grades at the end of the summer sessions. Faculty for session three didn't get paid until the end of eight weeks, and felt it was a long time to wait to get paid, said Professor Cathy Frey, dean of math and sciences.

The faculty brought their concerns forward, and the school found that the regular payment schedule was out of compliance with state law, according to Frey.

When the faculty initially felt they were not getting the response they wanted, they "came to the Dean's (Office) and asked us to bring it forward," said Frey.

"We brought it forward in a dean's meeting and (the next day) I had an e-mail from Richard Rebmann," said Frey.

Rebmann, Norwich University's chief financial officer, said in the e-mail that the school was going to come into compliance with the law.

According to the Vermont Statutes Web site, (www.leg.state.vt.us), "In the state of Vermont it is required that employees be paid no less often than weekly, biweekly or semimonthly if the employer gives notice."

There are four different types of payroll at the university. The first payroll group includes all of the support staff, excluding school administrators. Most office staff and facilities staff are in this category.

These employees are already on a bi-weekly payment schedule, according to Wisner.

"We have been paying our hourly support staff on a bi-weekly schedule for more than 35 years," said Wisner.

The second payroll was set up for a number of former staff employees who worked at Norwich before the current retirement plan was available. Many years ago, the trustees decided to provide payments to these individuals, in appreciation for their long service and in recognition of the fact that they were not eligible to receive a retirement benefit, according to Wisner.

It is called a "gratuitous" pension plan because the university was not obliged to provide any benefit, but did so anyway. The payments are technically "gratuities," or a way of saying thank you to these individuals for their service, according to Wisner.

This payroll will eventually end when all of the beneficiaries have passed away.

The third payroll at Norwich is student payroll, and was previously on a monthly cycle. Now it has switched to a bi-weekly cycle for work study and nonwork study programs to comply with the Vermont state laws.

Faculty and staff are now paid monthly, but this will be changing to either a bi-weekly or semi-monthly system of Jan. 1, 2010.

Being paid on a monthly basis had disadvantages.

"It was horrible getting paid monthly; it was inconvenient," said Stacy Van Wickler, a senior psychology major from Keene, N.H.

"Like anyone else I have bills. I have a cell phone, I have drivers insurance, and paying for those on time is difficult when you get paid monthly," Van Wickler said. "Making the paycheck last the whole month is also really hard which made saving really challenging."

The new payment system comes with other advantages for students. The payment is closer in time to when the student actually worked, so there is less waiting between paychecks, Wisner said.

Although the school has corrected the problem, it is surprising that the problem went on for so long without being noticed.

"As far as I know, we did not have any complaints or questions from outside payroll or (human relations) about our monthly pay frequency or the payroll provision of state law before this summer," said Wisner.