Dear UltraTime Supervisors,
CARES ACT EMPLOYEE RETENTION REPORTING: How to Report Time to Qualify for Available Tax Credit for Full-Time and Regular Part-Time Staff
Please use the OEM – Other Emergency absence code to consistently track all Coronavirus-related paid hours for non-worked time. See attached worksheet.
During this last bi-weekly pay period, we created the OEM (Other Emergency) code to assist in tracking Coronavirus-related hours and wages. Initially, departments were given the option of using the OEM code; however, the recently passed Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act provides up to a $5,000 per employee tax credit for employers who continue to pay employees who aren’t working or working reduced hours due to COVID-19. The University will be able to claim a federal tax credit under the CARES Act for continuing to employ persons who have a less than full workload. We are now requesting each department to use the OEM code to track hours as required in order to allow the University to support its claims for these tax credits.
We have attached a worksheet providing guidance on when to accurately use the OEM code. In many cases this is clear, such as when an employee is unable to work and the job cannot be performed remotely. In this situation, the full daily hours should be recorded as OEM.
In other cases, it may be less clear, such as when an employee is willing but unable to work their full schedule due to a lack of work. In these instances, please work together with your employee to determine an appropriate breakdown of worked hours versus OEM hours depending on the unique circumstances. The OEM code can be used in increments to help simplify time entry. For example, an employee is working remotely with assigned work for 4 hours out of the 8 hour day; the employee can enter work time from 10am to 2pm along with OEM for 4 hours to total the full 8 hours of paid time. You may keep this process as simple and reasonable as possible.
When using the OEM code in UltraTime, you may run reports to track these hours. In addition, the dollar costs can also be tracked within your budget units as the job FOAPAL will also have the 11019 activity code automatically attached.
Thank you for all the great work. As always please reach out to us with any questions – ultratime@nd.edu.