General Provisions
Required Documentation

Background

In general, the Comptroller’s office requires a state agency to provide documentation supporting the legality, propriety and fiscal responsibility of each payment that results from a payroll document if the payment is made out of the agency’s funds.

The supporting documentation must be made available in the manner required by the Comptroller’s office. The Comptroller's office may require the documentation to be made available during a post-payment audit, a pre-payment audit or at any other time.

Note: For security reasons, agencies may choose to mask an employee’s Social Security number or use an alternate employee identification number on the various types of supporting documentation. The agency must be able to demonstrate that the masked Social Security number or employee identification number relates to the specific employee the documentation references to satisfy the requirement that it be included on the documentation.

Required Documentation

In addition to the requirements for particular circumstances, the types of documentation the Comptroller’s office may require include the following:

• Personnel action forms.
• Employee leave records.
• Documentation on scheduled work hours for employees.
• Documentation on overtime pay and compensatory time paid.
• Documentation for authorized payroll deductions.
• Authorizations for leveling of benefit replacement pay.
• Direct deposit authorization form for each employee or, for a state agency that does not allow direct deposits for all or certain classes of employees, the agency’s determination that direct deposit for those employees would result in more cost to the agency than paying them by warrant or that direct deposit for those employees would be impractical to the agency.
• Documentation verifying the Social Security numbers of officers and employees.
• Documentation of eligibility to receive longevity pay, hazardous duty pay, bonuses and other special types of compensation (such as clothing allowances, housing allowances, lump-sum payments of accrued vacation time and lump-sum payments of accrued vacation and sick leave) if the eligibility is not supported on a personnel action form.
• Payroll detail for a payroll document that gives the gross pay, net pay and deductions for each payment for agencies submitting reimbursement payrolls.

Personnel Action Form

The personnel action form that documents an action concerning a state employee must specify/contain the following:

• The action taken, e.g.:
  • Merit salary increase
  • Promotion
  • Demotion
  • Termination
  • Reclassification
  • Bonus
• The name and employee identification number of the employee.
• The effective date of the action taken.
• The effective date of the employee’s last merit salary increase.
• The effective date of the employee’s last promotion.
• The position type of the employee before and after the action — it must be one of the following:
  • Classified
  • Unclassified
  • Exempt
• For both before and after the action is taken and if the position for which the action is taken is a classified or an exempt position:
  • The state classification job title of the employee.
  • The state classification job number of the employee.
  • The state classification salary of the employee.
• For both before and after the action is taken and if the position for which the action is taken is an unclassified position:
  • The agency-defined job title of the employee.
  • The agency-defined job classification number of the employee.
  • The agency-defined job classification salary of the employee.
• The employee type for both before and after the action is taken, which must be:
  • Hourly, part time or full time
    – and –
  • Temporary or regular.
• The salary of the employee both before and after the action is taken, which may be expressed as an annual, monthly or hourly rate.
• The number of hours the employee is normally scheduled to work each week, both before and after the action is taken.
• Whether the employee is subject to the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), both before and after the action is taken.
• The original signature of an employee authorized by the employing state agency to approve personnel action forms for the agency and the date of the signature.

Documentation to Support Leave Without Pay

The supporting documentation for a state employee who takes leave without pay or whose salary is docked must specify the following:

• The employee’s name and employee identification number.
• The beginning and ending dates of the leave or the period the salary is docked.
• The work schedule of the employee including the days the employee is normally scheduled to work and the number of working hours on each of those days.
• If the employee is subject to the overtime provisions of the FLSA.
• The number of leave hours taken or the number of hours for which the salary is docked.

Documentation to Support the Payment of Accrued Leave

The supporting documentation for a state agency’s payment of any type of accrued leave or compensatory time to a state employee must specify:

• The employee’s name and employee identification number.
• The work schedule of the employee including the days the employee is normally scheduled to work and the number of working hours on each of those days.
• If the employee is subject to the overtime provisions of the FLSA.
• The type of leave or compensatory time being paid to the employee.
• The number of leave or compensatory time hours the agency is paying the employee.

Documentation and Method to Verify Prior State Employment

Generally, there are two methods an agency may use to verify prior state employment for determining lifetime service credit for longevity and hazardous duty eligibility and vacation leave accrual rates. An agency may either:

• Contact each previous employer separately.
  – or –
• Contact only the last employer.

Contacting each previous employer separately

If the state agency that currently employs a state employee chooses to contact each previous employer to verify the amount of longevity or hazardous duty lifetime service credit accrued by the employee during previous employments, then the supporting documentation for the verification must do the following:

• Specify the name and Social Security number of the employee.
• Provide the name of each previous employer under which the employee accrued lifetime service credit.
• Provide the name of the employee at each previous employer who verified the amount of lifetime service credit.
• Provide the date that each previous employer verified the amount of lifetime service credit.
• Provide the beginning and ending dates of each employment the employee accrued lifetime service credit for.
• Provide the beginning and ending dates of any employment that required the employee to perform a hazardous duty.
• Provide the beginning and ending dates of any period when the employee took leave without pay.

If a position the employee accrued lifetime service credit for was a classified or an exempt position, then the supporting documentation for the verification must specify:

• The state classification or exempt job title of the employee.
  – and –
• The state classification or exempt job number of the employee.

If a position for which the employee accrued lifetime service credit was an unclassified position, then the supporting documentation for the verification must specify:

• The agency-defined job title of the employee.
  – and –
• The agency-defined job classification number of the employee.

Contacting only the last employer

If a state agency that currently employs a state employee chooses to accept the amount of lifetime service credit shown for the employee on the records of the last state agency that employed the employee, the supporting documentation in the current employer’s records must contain a signed statement from the last agency specifying the amount of lifetime service credit for the employee as shown on that agency’s records. The statement must provide the date of the signature.

If the state agency that previously employed a state employee no longer exists, the current employing state agency may accept any reasonable evidence of the amount of lifetime service credit accrued by the employee while working for the defunct agency. The evidence may include:

• Data from retirement systems.
• Personnel action forms.
• Statements from the employee.
• Payroll records.
• Pay stubs.
• Statements from others with knowledge of the employee’s duties while working for the agency.
• Information from the records of any legal successor to the agency.

Documentation Requirements Related to Employee Termination

The supporting documentation for a state employee who voluntarily or involuntarily terminates employment with a state agency must specify the following:

• The employee’s last day of employment, defined as the last day the employee was expected to work for the agency and not including any day the employee remained on the agency’s payroll to exhaust the employee’s accrued vacation time balance.
• The number of hours worked on the last day of employment.
• The number of hours included in any lump-sum payment to the employee for the accrued balance of the employee’s vacation time.

Note: If the employee is remaining on the payroll to exhaust the employee’s accrued vacation time balance, the supporting documentation must specify the amount of that balance as of the last day of employment and the date through which the employee remains on payroll.

Retention of Supporting Documents for Audit

A state agency must maintain documentation in its files to support the legality, propriety and fiscal responsibility of each payment resulting from a payroll document if the payment is made out of the agency’s funds. The documentation must be maintained even if the Comptroller’s office does not require the agency to make it available to the Comptroller’s office.

A state agency’s supporting documentation must satisfy both of the following requirements:

• The supporting documentation for a payroll document must be maintained in agency files at least until the end of the second appropriation year after the appropriation year in which the document is processed. For example, an agency would be required to maintain in its files throughout appropriation year 2012 supporting documentation for all documents processed in appropriation years 2012, 2011 and 2010. Any state or federal statute, regulation or rule that requires the documentation to be maintained in agency files for a longer period prevails over the preceding two sentences.
• The state agency whose funds are used to make a payment is responsible for maintaining the supporting documentation for the payment. A state agency is solely responsible for complying with any requirement of the Comptroller for the agency to make supporting documentation available to the Comptroller. The Comptroller is not required to search the agency’s files for the documentation, determine which documentation corresponds with which payroll document or transaction, or otherwise organize or sort the documentation. If the agency does not make supporting documentation for a particular payroll document or transaction available to the Comptroller according to the Comptroller’s requirements, then the Comptroller may reject the document or transaction or deem any payment resulting from the document or transaction to be unsubstantiated or erroneous.

The preceding supporting documentation requirements also apply to any supporting documentation that a state agency maintains electronically.

Sources

Texas Government Code, Section 403.071.