How can I make a request for an emergency salary advance?
Requests for emergency salary advances where delays in payment are causing personal hardship can be made in accordance with TB's Directive on Terms and Conditions of Employment.
You can request an emergency salary advance (ESA) when you are not paid. You must ask the Public Service Pay Centre to send your department a requisition (Form GC 80) requesting an emergency salary advances payment of estimated net salary.
The GC 80 Form will go to the delegated manager for their signature (delegated manager must have a section 34 delegation under the Financial Administration Act and is a level 4 HR sub-delegation (usually DG level)). Once signed it is provided to Finance to issue the payment.
The GC 80 Form is then provided to the Trusted Source and Liaison Unit at the Public Service Pay Centre to record that the advance was issued and so they may recover the payment from the first available funds.
The applicable excerpts of the TB's Directive on Terms and Conditions of Employment are reproduced below:
16. Standard of timeliness
"16.1 Persons with the delegated authority are to adhere to the following pay timeliness standards:
a. On initial appointment, or on return to work following leave without pay or any other salary interruption, the salary payment covering the entitlement for the first pay period, should be available by the end of the following pay period and thereafter on the regular payday.
b. Upon termination of employment, the last salary payment should be available within 20 working days of the struck-off strength effective date.
c. All changes in pay should be reflected in the second pay period following the one in which the authorized document is received by Compensation.
17. Emergency salary advance
17.1 When a regular salary payment is not issued to a person as per subsection 16.1 paragraph a. above, persons with the delegated authority are to ensure that an emergency salary advance is requisitioned by the employing organization immediately. An emergency salary advance is to be issued only for time worked in a pay period and not paid through the normal processing of that pay.
17.2 A person does not have to request an emergency salary advance. If the person indicates that he or she does not want the advance when it is offered, the department is not required to issue one.
17.3 Emergency salary advances are not to be issued under the following circumstances:
a. for allowances or retroactive or extra-duty entitlements;
b.to replace missing or delayed direct deposit payments-these are to be handled in accordance with section 7 of the Electronic Payments Regulations; or
c.to replace lost, stolen or destroyed cheques after they have been delivered to the person-these are to be handled in accordance with section 5 of the Cheque Issue Regulations, 1997.
17.4 The amount of the emergency salary advance is to be calculated to the approximate net pay entitlement for the pay period covered and in no case is to exceed two thirds of the person's gross pay entitlement for the period.
17.5 Emergency salary advances are to be recovered from the first salary payments following the issuance of the emergency salary advance. When the emergency salary advance could not be recovered from the first salary payments, the person in receipt of the advance is required to refund the advance by means of a money order or personal cheque. Under no circumstances can the emergency salary advances be recovered over an extended period.
17.6 Emergency salary advances constitute accountable advances within the meaning of the Financial Administration Act and, when necessary, may be recovered from any monies payable to the person concerned or that person's estate."