Note: This page has been archived as of March 19, 2025.
March 2025 Newsletter Content Overview
- General
- From Heidi: An update on AST's work
- HR/Payroll
- Dean's approvals for temporary academics and ASEs
- Items that still need Dean's approval to move forward
- Coming early April: Compensation intake form update
- Spring I-9 drop-in hours begin soon!
- Accounting and Grants
- ECC Status
- How to find pending tickets in Award Portal
- Payments and Procurement
- Change: Separate Receipts vs. Collated Receipts
- Foreign National Services
- Changes to Visa Interview Waiver Availability at U.S. Consulates
GENERAL
From Heidi: An update on AST's work
Dean Harris’s recent memo (dated March 11, 2025) outlining CAS’s financial risk mitigation actions has elicited a host of questions from faculty and administrative staff. Like you, AST is awaiting clarifications and instructions from College and University leadership.
While we wait, I have instructed the team to continue our work as normal. Specifically:
- AST will process all incoming requests as usual, without change to our triage and processing protocols.
- Cara and Heidi will review Workday transactions for compliance as usual, without change to our focus or procedure.
The responsibility for authorizing “essential” hires, travel, payments, and purchases rests with department and College leadership and should be obtained before any action is initiated.
As of this writing, Dean Harris has given approval for hiring temporary academics and ASEs through Summer 2025 (for guidance, see the following ‘Dean’s approvals for hiring temporary academics and ASEs’ section of this newsletter). AST has no other specific protocols for documenting Dean or Divisional Dean authorizations in our Workday submissions, but we anticipate having more soon. Once we have more clarity, we will publish the details in a special edition of our AST newsletter. Please be on the lookout for it in the coming days.
HR/PAYROLL
Dean's approvals for hiring temporary academics and ASEs
Dean Harris has given the following blanket approvals for hiring temporary academics and ASEs. Please copy/paste the appropriate blurb into the Workday comments when processing these actions:
- Temporary academics: The College of Arts & Sciences is honoring all academic offers made prior to March 7 and Dean Harris has currently given approval to CAS units to continue with temporary academic hires (excluding post-docs, which need more review) for Spring 2025 and Summer 2025.
- ASE hires: The College of Arts & Sciences is honoring all ASE offers made prior to March 7 and Dean Harris has currently given approval to CAS units to continue with ASE hires for Spring 2025 and Summer 2025.
For now, please hold off on entering temporary academic and ASE actions beyond Summer 2025.
Items that still need Dean's approval to move forward
Any items that are not temporary academics or ASE hires still need approval from your Divisional Dean prior to moving forward. While not a comprehensive list, the following items still need approval:
- Staff hiring
- Post-doc hiring
- Non-ASE student hiring
- Compensation changes (including base compensation changes, temporary increases, additional compensation, one-time payments, etc.)
To obtain approval for these items, please send an email to your Divisional Dean and copy Ivy Mason-Sharrah (ivym@uw.edu). The requests should outline why the work is essential, the salary/payment amount, and the funding plan. Once a Divisional Dean indicates approval, you can put the action through Workday and include a comment that approval was obtained. For AST HR/Payroll-supported units, indicate that you received approval in the notes section of your ticket.
Central units are currently sending back temporary salary changes, one-time payments, etc. and the Dean’s Office is working to clarify guidance on those items as well.
We will communicate more information as it becomes available.
Coming early April: Compensation intake form update
AST HR/Payroll will be updating our compensation intake form to more adequately reflect revisions made to Executive Order 59 (EO 59), which governs additional compensation for faculty. The following information details the upcoming changes to our new and improved compensation form, and how each form option can effectively be used.
- Base Compensation Change
- This form option was previously called “Request Compensation Change,” but has been renamed to more clearly indicate that it is to be used exclusively to request changes to employees’ base compensation.
- One-Time Payment
- The One-Time Payment form option should be used to submit one-time payment requests for staff and students.
- Due to limits on additional compensation and additional documentation requirements brought about by changes in EO 59, the “one-time payment” form is no longer appropriate to use for academic personnel in most cases. Additional compensation requests for academic personnel should be submitted to AST HR/Payroll using the newly created Temporary/Additional Compensation form option.
- Overpayment/Underpayment
- There are no changes to this form option.
- Temporary/Additional Compensation (NEW)
- This newly created form option can be used to request temporary increases for staff, and all additional compensation requests for academic personnel – including those which had previously been submitted as one-time payments.
- This will replace the following options: TPI/TSI, Period Activity Pay, and Administrative Supplement.
These updates to the compensation form will be live in early April. As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to our office via email at teamcas@uw.edu or Teams.
Spring I-9 drop-in hours begin soon!
Cherry blossoms are beginning to blossom, which means it’s almost time for AST’s spring I-9 drop-in hours! Our I-9 team will be hosting drop-in hours from March 31 to April 4, 2025, in AST’s Office (Communications Building B042).
Spring into action by sharing the attached spring 2025 I-9 drop-in schedule (PDF) with your new hires, as well as the I-9 Journey Map and AST’s I-9 Appointment Scheduling Link.
Contact teamcas-i9@uw.edu if you or your hires have any questions or concerns.
ACCOUNTING AND GRANTS
ECC Status
We are well into the second period of effort certification. We are aiming to have all statements pre-reviewed and certified by April 18, 2025. If AST is your effort coordinator, please return your CAS Effort and Project Statements Report spreadsheet to us as soon as possible.
Here is the status of effort and project reporting as of March 17, 2025:
|
|
Effort |
Project |
|---|---|---|
|
Pre Review |
211 |
487 |
|
With PI for Certification |
30 |
54 |
|
Certified -- great job! |
78 |
531 |
|
Total |
319 |
1072 |
Need help?
- For ECC access, visit the ECC System Access page to get started.
- For questions regarding this process, please use our Grants Inquiry form to contact our Accounting and Grants team.
How to find pending tickets in Award Portal
Award Portal is the primary entry point to send in questions or requests for specific grants and awards. GCA also uses Award Portal to contact you if they have a question or request. To identify if you have any pending actions, use the following steps to locate open requests:
- Log into Award Portal.
- Select “CC Reports” in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. If you cannot find this option, then expand the menu in the top right of the screen and “CC Reports” will appear in the dropdown menu.
- Search by Cost Center or by Department name.
- The search parameters default to everything, but you can deselect the check boxes to only “Open Tickets” to see what next steps are needed from your department.
For additional guidance, please refer to GCA’s Award Portal webpage.
PAYMENTS AND PROCUREMENT
Change: Separate Receipts vs. Collated Receipts
AST is constantly evaluating and tweaking processes to increase efficiency and decrease errors and confusion. One area of focus is our intake forms – there is future work slated to improve our forms and ensure all required documents are attached. Until then, departments and individuals can immediately begin changing their input practice.
Starting now, we ask that all receipts for reimbursement requests are attached as individual files. Pre-Workday, we were encouraged to collate receipts prior to submitting in Ariba. Now that Ariba is a distant memory, we no longer need to complete this step. Separated receipts help our team quickly confirm appropriate documentation is attached and process reimbursements more efficiently.
FOREIGN NATIONAL SERVICES
Changes to Visa Interview Waiver Availability at U.S Consulates
The Department of State announced on February 18, 2025, that they are narrowing the criteria for eligibility for waivers of visa interviews. This may result in longer wait times for visa stamps for incoming and returning scholars on all visa types. Scholars should review the updated criteria prior to international travel if they expect to apply for a new visa stamp, and plan their travel dates accordingly.
As always, please fill out our General Inquiry Form (preferred) or email teamcas@uw.edu if you have any questions or concerns.
Last Updated: Monday, March 31, 2025