Making twice-a-month paychecks a reality for state employees is still likely several years away, but tucked deep inside theAssembly’s floor report of the 2023-24 state budget package is a green light to change how California’s more than 285,000 state employees are paid.
Senate Bill 130 amends what is known as the Uniform Payroll Cycle — jettisoning the state’s unique once-a-month pay schedule for a more traditional biweekly system favored by most of the rest of California’s and the nation’s workplaces as part of a newCalifornia State Payroll System project.
The shift would be a win for state workers who would have more financial flexibility as they juggle family budgets and battle inflation, said Sacramento human resource professional andSacramento Area Human Resource Association President Myra Makelim.
“All months are not created equal. It would definitely help employees with budgeting with inflation what it’s been — paychecks aren’t stretching as much,” Makelim said. “Employers will see employees who aren’t as taxed or as stressed. I see no downside to it, and it puts the State of California in line with the private sector.”
Biweekly pay is the industry standard across the U.S. private sector. More than 45% of private establishments sign payroll checks twice a month, according to a February 2022 Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Employment Statistics survey.
Nearly 32% of establishments paid their employees each week; while little more than 4% of employers surveyed pay their workers monthly, according to the 2022 survey of nearly 900 industries nationwide.
That number shrinks even further for workplaces with more than 1,000 employees. Just 0.9% of U.S. establishments with more than 1,000 workers are on a once-a-month pay schedule, the survey showed.
The state government payroll project is billed as a multiyear effort to remake the state’s human resource management functions, updating the travel and business expense and payroll systems that the hundreds of thousands of state employees and their employers in Sacramento and across California rely upon.
The project to overhaul systems first built in the late 1970s has been slow going, initially undone by economic downturn, then by failed initiatives like the ill-fated MyCalPAYS system during the last decade. Today, nearly eight years into the state payroll system project, California officials hope to marshal cloud technology to ensure this latest plan takes hold.
Even as inflation has slowed somewhat and the cost of fuel and groceries have eased, the price at the pump and the supermarket still weigh on the state employee workforce, more than 1 in 4 of whom call Sacramento home.
“Inflation is down but prices are not going back down to what they once were. People are still recovering,” Makelim said. “I have many friends who are state employees and who are paid once a month.” Even if their take-home pay remains the same, Makelim said, “this is a great way of easing financial stress.”
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