Friday Feature – Districts and Counties Working Together on PERS

When a new employee is hired, whose responsibility is it to enter the CalPERS Id into the new Employee record? Well, the short answer is the county because legally counties are responsible for retirement reporting unless a district is fiscally independent. But, the longer answer is that HR is already entering the employee’s name, address, social security, and everything else on the planet. Why not allow them to enter the CalPERS Id too (if they have it) and save the county personnel the extra step of entering the data?

Escape encourages and supports this type of cooperation with some special logic for the PERS Member ID field in the Employee record.

See the red arrow pointing to the PERS Member ID field in the Employee record. Normally, this is a read-only field (marked with the lock icon like you see in the field above), but this is a new employee, not just a new employee for the district but a new employee for the county, so the field is unlocked and available for editing.

How does Escape Online know whether or not to make the field editable? Excellent question. In a county-wide system, Escape Online tracks retirement at both the county and district level, ensuring that all earnings at all district locations are tied together in one easy county record.

So, when the HR technician enters the employee’s Social Security Number, Escape Online checks the database to see if that employee already exists. AND, if that employee does exist, Escape Online loads information for that employee, saving the district data entry effort.

And, that’s the point!

By using special logic, the district can save the county time by entering the PERS Member ID, and the county can save the district time by automatically pre-filling fields for employees that are already in the system.

Now that’s some automatic and purposeful cooperation.  Go team!