Hourly Payroll for Pay Period Ending March 31, 2026; Salary Benefit Utilization for March 1-31, 2026

Announcements

Deadlines at a Glance:

    • Wednesday, April 1, 2026 @ 4:30 PM — Hourly time entry summaries due (PPE 3/31/2026)
    • Tuesday, April 7, 2026 – End of Day — Individual salary employees on leave: March benefit usage emailed to payroll@niu.edu
    • Thursday, April 16, 2026 @ 4:30 PM — Salary benefit usage summaries due (March 1–31, 2026)

Important – March 16 Change or Closure Day:

March 16, 2026, was designated a Change or Closure Day / Emergency Change to Virtual Campus Operations for the hours of 12:00 AM – 4:30 PM. All employees must report work hours or benefit usage for that day.

If your department determined that an employee was essential personnel who worked on campus during those hours, please report the hours worked as comp time earned at the 1.5 rate for work performed between 12:00 AM and 4:30 PM. In the comments field, note the employee’s scheduled work hours for that day and confirm that the employee was designated as essential personnel in order to qualify for the comp time benefit.

For full policy details, see the Change or Closure of University Operations Pay and Benefit Policy in the NIU Policy Library.

Reminders:

    • Have employees verify their position numbers on timesheets match what’s on the summary
    • Ensure all timesheets use the new timesheet format with Premium Pay lines (or they’ll be sent back)
    • Don’t email timesheets if you’re dropping them off in person
Timesheets are due each pay period when the summary is due.  Timesheets can be emailed to payroll@niu.edu or dropped in the drop box outside of the main HR building at 1515 West Lincoln Highway. As always, please place in the subject line: “Hourly Payroll for Pay Period [insert current pay period].”
To help ensure accurate and timely processing as well as compliance with the retention schedule for timesheets, please note the following:
    • The preferred method of certifying a timesheet is to capture ink signatures from the employee and the supervisor.
    • The department doesn’t need to retain email correspondence if ink signatures are used.
    • Electronic signatures are also acceptable from both the employee and/or supervisor.
    • If electronic signatures are used, or a combination of ink and electronic, it is unnecessary for the department to retain email correspondence.
    • Typed signatures – if the employee and/or the supervisor cannot ink or electronically sign, they should type their name in the appropriate field on the timesheet and email it from their NIU email account.
    • If typed signatures are used, email correspondence between the employee, supervisor, and timekeeper should be retained at the department level for three years in a shared location (department one drive or printed and stored in a central location) for audit purposes.

Payroll Summaries

To help ensure accurate records for audit purposes, HRS is capturing meta-data within the OneDrive Payroll Summaries folder to confirm the authorized payroll reviewer in each unit has reviewed it.  Please note that the authorized payroll reviewer must ‘view’ the summaries in all cases.

Salaried Employee Benefit Leave Usage Form (for employees on leave)

Individual, salaried employees’ Benefit usage for all leaves must be emailed to payroll@niu.edu by the end of the date listed above.  Please place “[EMPLOYEE ID#] [Last Name] Monthly Benefit.
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