Currently, Graduate Research Assistants (GRAs) are paid a salary ranging from $22,750 per year ($875 per pay period) up to $26,780 per year ($1,030 per pay period) based upon 20 hours of work per week. They also are treated as exempt from overtime and sign a monthly activity report.
Effective December 1, 2016, the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act has set a salary level of $47,476 for all employees classified as exempt from paid overtime, regardless of the number of hours worked per week. In order to comply with the new law, HRI will consider GRAs as hourly employees, and as hourly employees, they will need to report, and be paid for, each hour worked. They will need to complete a different timesheet and record the total hours worked each day on that time sheet.
As per the agreement with SUNYA School of Public Health, GRAs, as students, are allowed to work and be paid up to a maximum of 20 hours per week as part of their assistantship. The 20 hour limit is in place to leave time for GRAs to pursue their graduate studies. It will be up to supervisors to ensure that their GRAs properly record hours worked and abide by the terms of their assistantships. Principal Investigators and supervisors should work with their Division Administrators to address any issues.
Effective December 1, 2016, each GRA will have an hourly rate of pay. This rate is calculated by dividing the current bi-weekly salary by 40 hours. As long as GRAs work 20 hours per week, they will see no change in their pay. Programs continue to have the option of changing GRAs to another hourly title during winter break and in the summer.
We are in the process of preparing change in status memos which will be sent to all the GRAs. They will also receive a new timesheet. If you have questions, please contact either myself at Marianne.Castelot@healthresearch.org or Karissa Benner at Karissa.Benner@healthresearch.org. Link to memo.
