June 2026 Payroll News

The State of Oklahoma, as an employer, does not process wage assignments. We must be ordered by the courts or required by federal or state law to withhold a debt amount from an employee’s wages.

Garnishments/withholding orders include creditor garnishments, tax levies, administrative wage garnishments, support orders, bankruptcy orders and student loans, to name a few.

A wage assignment occurs when an employee voluntarily agrees to have an amount deducted from their paycheck. Employers can choose whether they process a wage assignment, and if so, the creditor will receive the amount withheld from the employee's paycheck without obtaining a court order. Wage assignments do not fall under the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act (CCPA) and can be used for any type of payment (pay day loans, bill payments, etc.). Basically, the employer is paying an employee’s bills by doing this.

Agencies may receive lender or other creditor wage assignments for employees and should not be entering these in Workday@OK. Wage assignments are not part of the Voluntary Payroll Deduction program. A wage assignment is an employee’s way to ask the employer to pay their bills/debts, or for a creditor or third party to collect a debt outside the court system. A wage assignment is not a legal court order to be honored by an employer. 62 O.S. § 34.70 (Payroll Deductions) provides the voluntary payroll deductions authorized to be withheld from an employee’s payroll.

On the other hand, wage garnishments are involuntary, go through the court system and have a judge’s signature. Wage garnishments must be honored, answered and entered in a timely manner to process the withholding through payroll.

Workday@OK report RPT00076, Pay Calculation Results – Deduction Register for Agency Access, can be run to identify all employees with withholding orders. Enter the agency and pay period to review. For the Deductions, type in ”Wage Assignment” and select the Withholding Order (Wage Assignment) result, then OK to run. Once the results show, review any wage assignment. If set as a wage assignment in error, a correction will be needed.

Agencies can also run the DC Validation Worker Withholding Orders report to identify employees with wage assignments that may not yet be processed through payroll, filtering out the value of Wage Assignment on the Type column.

Additionally, we have seen an increase in wage assignments that do not have the correct employer named on the assignment or for which the employee doesn’t owe the amount. If agencies receive such a wage assignment, notify the employee that it will not be processed for payroll withholding.

As a reminder, if the entity is not on the Voluntary Payroll Deduction program list of vendors and it is not a court order or required by federal/state law, by statute we should not be withholding the amount.

Note: Child or spousal support orders may also be referred to as income assignments but are valid, legal orders that must be entered and processed for withholding. 

Employee deferrals and employer contributions must be remitted to OPERS in a timely manner to ensure participant amounts are posted and transferred to the selected investment options within 10 business days of payday, end-of-payroll period or the process date, whichever is later.

OMES processes payments for SoonerSave amounts on completed payrolls on a weekly basis. This payment schedule far exceeds the requirements set forth in the plan and IRS rules. On many occasions, contributions are posted to employee accounts on or before the actual pay date. Occasionally, due to the payroll processing schedule of agencies, payments may post after the actual pay date.

Please remind employees that payments not showing on a quarterly statement may be due to the later processing of payroll and will show on the next quarterly statement. Employees are also encouraged to use the SoonerSave website to review and receive up-to-date information on their account.

The amount the State of Oklahoma pays for employee retirement will increase to 12.5% for FY 2027. The employee contribution amount will increase to 9% for FY 2027.

The amount the State of Oklahoma pays for employee retirement will decrease to 9.5% for FY 2027.

Due to this change, the employer contribution to the defined benefit plan for employees in Pathfinder will change from 9.5% to 2.5% and 10.5% to 3.5% in FY 2027. The actual percentage is dependent on the employer Pathfinder match required based on employee contributions.

The rate certified for the administrative cost to be calculated in payrolls submitted for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2026, has changed to $8.95 per month for any qualified participant. The equivalent amount for a biweekly pay period is $4.13. This change will be reflected in any payrolls submitted with a pay period code of M01 or B01.

The rate certified for the administrative cost to be calculated in payrolls submitted for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2026, will remain at $0.00 per month for any qualified participant. The equivalent amount for a biweekly pay period is $0.00. The continuation of no administrative fee is due to prior forfeitures being approved by the Board of Trustees for OPERS to pay administrative costs of the plan. 

The amount the State of Oklahoma pays for employee retirement will remain at 22.0% for FY 2027.

The federal matching contribution rate for the Teachers’ Retirement System will remain at 8.0% for FY 2027. The federal matching contribution rate must be paid when salaries are paid by federal funds or externally sponsored agreements such as grants, contracts and cooperative agreements. Other TRS contribution rates will remain the same for FY 2027. For a complete list of rates, please refer to Section 4, Page 16 of the TRS Employer Manual.

Please distribute the FY 2027 Pay Date schedules available on the Pay Schedules webpage to Payroll and Human Resource directors. Questions may be directed to payrollreporting@omes.ok.gov.