Education Support Personnel (ESP) may choose to annualise their salary. Education Support Personnel means all school-based employees who are employed to work 40/42/43 weeks per year and includes Teacher Assistant, School Administration, Canteen Assistants and Library Technicians.
Although this means that your fortnightly take home pay will be less as it will be spread across 52 weeks.
ESPs considering annualising their salary must weigh up the pros and cons for them as it will be different for everyone based on your own individual financial circumstances.
What happens when you annualise your salary?
If you choose to annualise your salary, you agree to spread your salary for a 12-month period from February to February.
The DoE payroll system will be set up to spread your salary over the fortnightly pay periods for the year.
Things to consider when annualising your salary
You can still work additional hours on top of your annualised hours. But this will require your School Business Manager to do a manual payment though the relief data entry system in SAWM every fortnight.
Additional hours worked will attract additional tax. In some situations, place you in a much higher bracket for tax deducted (eg. working extra hours in a fortnight during school holidays).
The total number of hours you can work is the fulltime equivalent (FTE) of 73.5 hours per fortnight.
If you are seeking additional hours you should put in a request in writing/email each year that you are seeking top up hours.
You can decrease your work hours during a period of annualisation. However, if your hours decrease then your Agreement will be suspended and you will revert to your standard 40/42/43-week arrangement.
Leave
If you take Leave Without Pay during a period of annualisation then your Agreement is suspended, and you will revert to your standard 40/42/43-week arrangement.
If you choose to annualise your salary, then you will not receive end of year payments for recreational leave because it is included in the annualisation process.
Long Service Leave accrues on your 40/42/43-week arrangement.
Personal leave is not affected and will be based on your 40/42/43-week arrangement.
How to annualise your salary?
To annualise your salary, you need to complete the Agreement to Annualise Form on the DoE Staff Intranet.
