Don’t Give Out Paydays like They’re Candy

By Jessica Sherrill, Director of OPSUCA and Staff Attorney

We give out Payday candy bars at the OPSUCA booth in the Exhibit Hall of the Annual OSSBA-CCOSA Conference! This will be my 10th conference as a member of the OSSBA legal team and the Director of OPSUCA, and each year just gets better!

Because we like catchy puns, OPSUCA uses the saying: Don’t Give Out Paydays Like They’re Candy. This helps explain our role in representing your school districts and career technology centers in unemployment matters. We don’t want your limited funding to be given away because of ineffective practices in response to claims for unemployment. Unemployment is expensive; each claim could cost your district up to $11,100 – that is a per employee cost you can avoid.

School districts are subject to different laws when it comes to unemployment, so it’s not always like what you might encounter in your regular employment for a non-school employer. Regardless of whether an employer is a school or non-school, the biggest threat to your unemployment liability is failing to adequately protest claims in a timely fashion. That is what OPSUCA does for its membership.

We appreciate that our membership allows us the opportunity to provide training on timekeeping, personnel management and more. Anytime OPSUCA can find a way to save you money, we explore opportunities on how to make it happen.

During this legislative session, we were instrumental in passing House Bill 1621. This will save schools money when deciding to outsource services like custodial or child nutrition programs. This law will go into effect on Nov. 1, 2017. It will extend reasonable assurance protection to cover employees who are hired by the outsourcing company and not working during school breaks. As we learn more about how it will be implemented in practice, we will communicate to your school payroll and personnel departments.

When you attend Conference this year, please come by the Exhibit Hall, grab a Payday from the OPSUCA booth and let us get to know you. We look forward to seeing you in Oklahoma City in August!