Summer Salary

Individuals who might receive summer salary include:

  • Faculty who negotiated summer compensation in their offer letter;
  • Faculty who have external funding sources that allow the payment of summer salary;
  • Faculty, staff or new employees teaching during summer session; and
  • Faculty with additional administrative responsibilities during the summer, including Department Chairs and Associate Deans.

Your department’s Research Administrator or Director of Administration will assist with calculating, obtaining signatures, and submitting materials for summer salary. 

Processing of State/UBF summer salary is completed by the Director of Administration or delegate. A summer appointment/stipend for a 12-month faculty must be processed as extra service. A summer appointment/stipend for a 10-month faculty is processed as regular service, additional commitment. Please see the summer/winter appointments extra service webpage for more information and all the required documents.

The Dean’s Office will process summer stipends that are part of a start-up package and summer salary for faculty with additional administrative responsibilities during the summer. Dean’s Office staff will contact your department to confirm the appointment, and to see if other appointments under other funding sources will be processed.

Processing of RF (Research Foundation) Summer salary is completed centrally by SEAS Research Administration (SRA); however, preparation of the materials needed for RF Summer salary are compiled by department staff prior to submission to SRA. Just as with your regular state salary, there is a lag of several weeks between appointment initiation and when the payment is issued.

Faculty teaching courses over the summer also receive summer salary; however, these appointments have specific effective dates based on the summer session the course is taught. This can make scheduling other payments tricky as appointments cannot overlap, and there are a finite number of days available across all funding sources that summer compensation can be taken. 

All these factors make it critically important that you inform your department administrators, so that they have full awareness of all summer appointments you expect, and any restrictions associated with the other payments.

Research Foundation Summer Salary

All faculty summer compensation must be processed within the current summer salary date range, no summer salary can be processed with an effective date before the first day of the first month of the summer date range, or beyond the end date of the final month of the summer date range. 

Total effort across all funding sources cannot exceed 100% on any day during the summer period. 

Determination of allowability of allocating a retroactive summer salary distribution to a sponsored project is at the sole discretion of Sponsored Projects Services. 

RF conceptualizes the summer period in three “summer month” units for payroll calculation purposes. A constant daily rate is used, equal to your current academic year Institutional Base Salary (IBS), divided by 195.

The 2024 RF Summer Salary Range is:

  • Month 1: 5/16/24 - 6/14/24 (22 Days)
  • Month 2: 6/15/24 - 7/16/24 (22 Days)
  • Month 3: 7/17/24 - 8/14/24 (21 Days)

Faculty who are to receive summer salary using sponsored research funding must do the following:

1. Verify with your department’s award analyst that you are eligible to take summer salary from the awards you intend to use to fund your summer distribution.

2. Work with your department RF administrative contact to create an RF Summer Reappointment Calculator for your planned summer distribution.

3. Obtain the required signatures on the RF Summer Reappointment Calculator:

            a. Employee Signature: To be signed by the person receiving the summer salary. Always required.

            b. Principal Investigator (PI) Signature:

                    i. If the recipient is the lead Investigator of all award(s) present on the calculator, their signature for the Employee Signature field is sufficient.

                    ii. If not the lead investigator on all awards present on the calculator, both the recipient of the summer salary and the lead PI(s) of the awards being used must sign.

            c. Supervisor Signature: To be signed by the direct supervisor of the individual receiving summer salary. Always required.

            d. Chair/Dean/VP Signature: To be signed by the Assistant Dean for Human Resources. Signature is only required for Department Chairs or those taking more than 2 months of summer salary from any funding source. Signature will be sought out by central processing if necessary

4. Obtain the required signatures for the Summer Certification Form (if taking summer salary from any source for more than 44 days, or two months).

            a. Complete/seek signatures for all fields on the form other than the “Office of the Dean” field.

            b. Once all other fields have been completed, your department administrator will upload the form here [waiting for landing page to be decided/made to link here].

5. Your department administrator will upload the completed summer calculator to the central processing queue linked here [waiting for landing page to be decided/made to link here] along with a cover sheet to ensure accuracy of the transaction.

Other Information and Resources

  • The Research Foundation for SUNY and The State University of New York are separate employers. Faculty opting for RF Summer Salary for the first time, or faculty that did not take summer salary in the previous summer period, are considered new employees, and must complete all new hire forms. Upon receiving the calculator and cover sheet, RF Central processing will contact the faculty member directly to coordinate the onboarding process.
  • Time reporting for RF Summer Salary is required and must be completed in RF Self-Service. RF Self-Service permissions are distributed upon completion of the employee’s first appointment transaction. Time reporting instructions and contacts for assistance can be found here.
  • The RF payroll processing calendar along with transaction processing deadlines can be found here.
  • Summer salary will be paid out of SUNY RF funds. Faculty currently holding an H1-B visa that lists SUNY as their employer cannot receive compensation from RF.
    • If this is your circumstance, please ensure the Director of Administration for your department is aware, and that your department’s IFR (Income Fund Reimbursable) account is listed on the summer calculator submission cover sheet.

For questions regarding RF summer salary, please contact Brett Davis. 

State/UBF Summer Salary

If you are a 10-month faculty member, you will be eligible for summer salary. Often this is paid from grants or external funding, but faculty new to the university may have summer salary as part of their start up commitments. Regardless of the source, there are some common rules that must be followed:

  • Faculty may earn up to 2 months (2/9s or 22.22%) of their base salary without additional approval.
  • If the amount of summer salary from all sources is more than 2/9s of their base salary, they must include the Summer Certification Form. This is signed by the faculty member and the department chair and uploaded here [waiting for landing page to be decided/made to link here] for approval from the Dean’s Office.
  • Summer compensation (combined from all sources) can never exceed 3/9s (or 33.333...%) of their base salary.

All faculty summer compensation must be processed within the current summer salary date range, no summer salary can be processed with an effective date before the first day of the first month of the summer date range, or beyond the end date of the final month of the summer date range. The effective dates for summer compensation change annually, but generally run from late May to mid-August. This year’s date ranges may be found on the Summer and Winter State Appointments webpage.  

Please note that the Research Foundation and State funding have different effective dates for summer appointments. If you are receiving funding from both sources in the same summer, please work with your Director of Administration on the best way to sequence your appointments.

Processing

The Dean’s Office will process summer stipends that are part of a start-up package and summer salary for faculty with additional administrative responsibilities during the summer. Dean’s Office staff will contact your department to confirm the appointment, and to see if other appointments under other funding sources will be processed.

Some departments will compensate faculty for administrative work during the summer. The rate of compensation is up to the department. 

The rate of compensation for summer teaching is also determined by the department, although most units should have a per-student compensation model.

  • Summer teaching stipends for existing 10-month faculty should be processed as an additional commitment.
  • 12-month faculty summer teaching is generally considered ‘on load’ so additional compensation is not necessary.  Any non-teaching service should be processed as extra service, including all forms. Departments should initiate these according to our extra service process.
  • Please refer to HR’s guidelines on the Summer and Winter State Appointments webpage when hiring new employees or current or former students, as titles vary depending on their current status.

Please note: all ePTFs initiated by the department for summer stipends should be routed to SEAS Review for approval.