Since the beginning of the school year, students and faculty members have been put on a new payroll system, called Topper Time. This system allows students who work on campus to enter in their hours online and faculty to approve the hours they submit.

However, the new system, along with the actual process of students being put on payroll, could be what has caused a delay in some students getting paid on campus.

David Alston Thompson, the supervisor of freshman studies interns, among other organizations, gave insight to the process that students go through when working on campus for the first time.

According to Thompson, most students are first referred to the office of Student Financial Services.

They are then asked to show proof of their identity by providing items such as a passport or birth certificate before being asked to fill out an I-9 form, also known as the Employment Eligibility Verification. The federal government requires students to fill out this form.

If students don’t fill out the I-9 form, then they are not allowed to work on campus or receive paychecks. The W-4 form, Employee’s Withholding Allowance Certificate, is one that students must fill out every academic year in case their information changes.

Sophomore Selena Alvarez had some trouble with the form that exempts students from having Social Security/Medicaid taxes withdrawn from their paycheck.

When Alvarez received her first paycheck at the beginning of October, she noticed some differences.

“I got paid $40 less because of taxes that were taken out, but they weren’t supposed to be,” Alvarez said.

Alvarez, who has been working for the University Police Department for a year, was unaware that students were supposed to fill out a tax exemption form every year.

“I thought that once you signed it, you didn’t have to do it again,” Alvarez said.

Despite the $40 difference in her paycheck and the new Topper Time system, Alvarez admits that she was paid earlier this year than she was last year.

Finally, students must also fill out a direct deposit form if they want their paycheck deposited directly into their bank account. Once students have filled out all the required paperwork and gotten all signatures necessary, their information is sent to the payroll office. Payroll enters the information on their system and that person’s timesheet becomes available on EdWeb.

Once students’ timesheets becomes available on EdWeb, they can log in their hours as they begin to work each week. The pay period for most students is the 15th and 30th of each month. Students must submit their hours by these dates.

However, this year’s process of submitting hours was different because of Topper Time. This year is the first time that all students and faculty would be required to use the online timesheet system. Thompson, along with other faculty members, was trained using Topper Time earlier in the semester.

Thompson said that once he was trained, he tried to explain the changes to his students.

“I tried to give students an introduction,” Thompson said.

Most of the students Thompson supervises did not seem to have a problem with the new online system. If they did, Thompson, who calls himself a visual learner, said that he would refer them to the online training video on the St. Edward’s website.

Despite the new Topper Time process, Thompson has not had any problems with his students entering in hours correctly.

“They’ve been really good about that. I’m very strict. They only have so many hours they can work a week,” Thompson said.

Thompson also believes that all of his students have been paid during the first pay period at the beginning of October.

“As far as I know they have been paid,” Thompson said.

Thompson, who has been working for the payroll system for the past 11 years, believes that the new Topper Time system could improve.

“It needs some tweaking, it’s like anything that’s new,” Thompson said.