The Daily Bulletin Archive

In any fiscal year in which February 29 falls, the Office of the State Comptroller automatically adjusts salaried employees' biweekly salary calculations based on 366 days in the fiscal year. Salaried employees paid on a calendar-year basis will see a change in their biweekly gross earnings beginning with the September 27, 2023, paycheck.

The definition of calendar year and the leap year and non-leap year salary calculation are posted on the Payroll FAQs page and are noted below. 

Questions may be directed to the Payroll Office via email or by phone at (716) 878-4124.

Pay Modes - Calendar (CAL) 
Use for faculty with academic-year obligations paid over 12 months. The normal appointment year or payroll obligation dates for faculty is 9/1/xx–8/31/xx. The faculty academic-year obligation is determined each year by the president (26 pay periods).

Why is there a discrepancy between my gross annual earnings and my annual base salary?
Since a fiscal year cannot be divided equally into biweekly periods, computation of the biweekly wage is made by dividing the annual salary by the number of calendar days in the fiscal year (365, or in the case of a leap year, 366) and multiplying this result by 14, the number of calendar days in a biweekly period. To reduce this process to one step, the fractions 14/365 and 14/366 are converted to multiplication factors: .038356 (non-leap year) and .038251 (leap year).

Normally, there are 26 pay periods during a calendar year. Due to idiosyncrasies in the calendar and the state's payroll cycle, state employees occasionally receive 27 paychecks in a calendar year, instead of 26. When this occurs, the employee's gross annual earnings will be higher than the annual salary.