Deferred Pay as a Payroll Option for Academic Year Faculty

• Full-time faculty on Academic Year contracts can opt in to deferred pay beginning Spring 2025 when they sign their salary agreement. Pay will be deferred for the 2025-26 AY contracts. Each year, when you sign your salary agreement, you will select your preference for pay (standard or deferred).
• New faculty hires will select their preferred payroll method with their offer letters. They are eligible to opt into deferred pay until the first day of the academic year contract.
• Your appointment must start at the beginning of the Academic Year; faculty who begin mid-year must wait to select deferred pay until the following year.
• Faculty must have a 1.0 FTE appointment for the entire academic year.

Faculty can elect deferred pay as their payroll method on their Fiscal Year 26 Salary agreement. You will make that election in May 2025. The payroll schedule will begin with your AY 26 contract. Pay will be deferred summer 2026.

Standard pay is a payroll schedule paid according to the academic year calendar (over nine months from August to May). Deferred pay is paid over twelve months and begins with the academic year. A faculty member on this payroll schedule receives their salary for their academic year contract over the academic year and during the summer months (from August to August).

No. Your selection of standard or deferred pay reflects your choice of how you would like to be compensated for your academic year contract. The summer contract is separate from your nine-month appointment. If you are hired to work in the summer, you would be compensated during the summer for that work.

Institutional Base Salary (IBS) is the salary calculation used in grant proposals. IBS is the annual compensation paid by an institution for an individual's appointment, whether that individual's time is spent on research, instruction, administration or other activities. IBS excludes any income an individual earns outside of duties performed for the institution. For most faculty, this figure is the full-time annual salary amount for your academic year contract plus any additional administrative stipend paid during the academic year. It excludes additional compensation for teaching or other work compensated above the 1.0 FTE.

Your selection of deferred pay or standard pay has no bearing on IBS.

No, deferred pay will be one of two options for payroll offered to faculty on academic year contracts. When you sign your salary agreement, you will select the way in which you want to be paid for the upcoming academic year. You can select standard pay (9 months) or deferred pay (12 months).

Yes. Faculty in this group will have to manage a one-time disruption in four pay periods in late summer 2025 to accommodate a payroll schedule transition.

No. Faculty are only eligible to be on deferred pay if they have a 1.0 FTE appointment for an entire academic year.

Faculty who hold administrative appointments (e.g. associate dean, department chair, program director, etc.) and who receive an administrative stipend can opt into having their base salary paid as deferred pay, but the administrative stipend must be paid over the academic year (nine months).

These positions often experience a great deal of change or start at different points in the year. The new payroll system has difficulty accommodating the high turnover and variability with these types of positions and so this part of the appointment will be treated separately and can only be paid on the academic year schedule.

Faculty on full-year sabbaticals are eligible for deferred pay. You must make this selection with your 2025-26 salary agreement. Supplemental pay for grants will be paid on a standard schedule.

There are roughly 100 faculty in this group who have remained on deferred pay since 2017. The Provost’s Office has sent emails to faculty affected by the reintroduction of deferred pay.

Faculty members who were on the deferred pay system prior to 2017 are currently on the old-deferred pay system. To offer deferred pay to all academic year faculty, the payroll and work periods need to be aligned to one schedule.

Salary for the 2025-26 contract will remain unchanged; however, faculty will not receive four paychecks in late Summer 2025 as they would under the old-deferred pay system. They will receive the July 3, 2025, paycheck plus a $1400 stipend to offset the cost of their employee contributions to benefits, then they will have an eight-week gap until pay begins for Fall 2025 under the new pay schedule. They will not receive a paycheck for the following dates:

• July 18, 2025
• Aug. 1, 2025
• Aug. 15, 2025
• Aug. 29, 2025

Paychecks will resume on Sept. 12, 2025. This will be the first paycheck of the 2025-26 appointment.

Payments for benefits must continue during the payroll schedule transition. U of I will continue to make its employer contributions to benefits, and, during this time, U of I’s third-party benefits administrator will bill faculty on the old system directly for each of the four pay periods for the cost of their benefits.

To ensure that employees can continue to make their employee contributions toward their benefits, each person on the old deferred pay system will receive a $1400 stipend on July 3, 2025 — as part of their paycheck. The $1400 stipend will lessen the impact of the employee contributions toward benefits. The benefits coverage during this period will not be affected as long as the payments are made during the transition period.

This stipend is taxable. The supplemental stipend may not cover the full cost of the benefits depending upon voluntary elections; the stipend is intended to help lessen the financial burden during the transition period. For the majority of affected faculty, though, this stipend fully covers their benefits contributions. To make changes to benefits, such as HSA contributions, please contact benefits@uidaho.edu to determine if changes are allowed by plan rules and IRS regulations.

Review deductions to ensure all payments are made during this transition period.

To ensure that employee benefits contributions continue during the payroll transition, each employee on the old deferred pay system will receive a $1400 stipend on July 3, 2025 — as part of their paycheck. The $1400 stipend will lessen the impact of their employee contributions toward benefits. The benefits coverage during this period will not be affected as long as you make the payments during the transition period.

This stipend is taxable. The supplemental stipend may not cover the full cost of the benefits depending upon voluntary elections; the stipend is intended to help lessen the financial burden during the transition period.

You do not have to pay back this stipend.

Summer contracts are separate from your academic year contract. Summer contracts are paid according to the regular payroll schedule over the summer.

Your retirement contributions are made when you are paid. You will receive your full salary for AY 25 and AY 26. Retirement contributions remain the same at the time you are paid.

For the transition year, you won’t be put on the 20 pay schedule until January of 2026. There is a delay so you don’t overpay your benefits. Benefits are paid on a calendar year so we will make sure to manage this transition for employees who make this change in their payroll schedule.

For the summer deferred pay transition, you will be making your employee contributions toward benefits after tax. The $1400 stipend takes that into account to help offset these expenses.

To estimate your benefits expenses during the Summer 2025 transition, do the following:

• Log on to MyUI.
• Select the Employee Resources card.
• Click on the myBenefits tab.
• Select the “View all” link on the bottom left side of your benefits summary. Your per pay period costs will be reflected on the bottom right of the “Your Cost” column.
• Take the “Your Cost” number and multiply it by four to estimate the amount you may be billed for your benefits coverage during the payroll reset period.

If you have additional questions, please contact Benefits at benefits@uidaho.edu.

Yes, you would still need to pay for the employee portion of your contributions to your benefits during that time. Yes, you will still receive the stipend.

That’s right — U of I will continue to make its employer contributions towards your benefits during the transition period.

Bills will be mailed to your mailing address on file in MyUI. Please review your address in MyUI to verify the correct mailing address.

Please review your address in MyUI to verify the correct mailing address is on file.

If you would like to do this, please reach out to Benefits at benefits@uidaho.edu to make these arrangements. They can create a password protected way to access the bill in a HIPPA compliant format.

They are sent on the 15th of each month, and you will have a period of time to make your payment.

The benefits are cancelled.

Currently, the old deferred pay system runs on a fiscal year calendar which goes from the start of the fiscal year (end of June/beginning of July) to the end of the fiscal year (end of June the following year). Prior to 2017, all academic year faculty were paid on deferred pay and it aligned with a fiscal rather than academic year schedule. When faculty had their original appointment, they would start on the academic year calendar (mid August) and their full salary would be paid through the end of the fiscal year (end of June). The subsequent academic year contract would be spread over the fiscal year (starting in July) and continued that way until now — the payment for the work for the upcoming academic contract started in July prior to the academic year.

For the 100+ faculty on the old system, this means their payroll schedule will be moved from a schedule that runs from start of July one year to the end of June the following year to one that aligns with their work period that starts in mid-August and will end in August the following year. That schedule reset accounts for the eight week lag. The old system is problematic because it doesn’t align with the academic contract period and that old schedule needs to be phased out.

During this transition, you are paid your full salary, but it will be on two different schedules. For this year (AY 24-25), your deferred pay salary is paid from end of June 2024 through July 3, 2025. For next year, your deferred AY 25-26 salary will be paid from middle of August 2025 through middle of August 2026. There isn’t a repayment obligation because you receive your full salary both years, but it is paid according to two different schedules.

• Faculty senate voted to bring back deferred pay in December 2023. In order to make deferred pay available to all academic year faculty, the payroll schedules must be the same.
• This change was communicated to faculty on the old system beginning in December 2023 when Faculty Senate passed their resolution. Faculty in this group were told that the old system required a schedule shift to align with the academic year and that they needed to prepare for a schedule transition that involved a gap in paychecks for a period of time.
• U of I will pay all faculty the full amount of their contracted salary for AY 25 and AY 26. Employees cannot be paid in advance per Idaho statute.

There are no salary savings for any of the deferred pay implementation. The State of Idaho allocates salaries when they are paid. U of I will not hold any of the funds during the payroll schedule transition.

U of I is investing significant resources to bring back deferred pay to make it available to all U of I academic year faculty per Faculty Senate’s request. This effort has no salary savings for the university.