Many TRS members work multiple jobs throughout their career in public education. A teacher might also drive a bus route, or a food service worker may also take tickets at sporting events. If neither of these additional jobs are part of the person’s primary work agreement, and therefore they must be reported separately.
Originally, TRS advised REs to either submit the additional ED40 to cover the entire school year, or to submit ED40s month-by-month depending on when the employee actually worked in their other position. Due to recently implemented validations, TRS is now asking employers to only submit an ED40 for a secondary position once the employee has begun working in that position. The dates of the contract must reflect when the employee will be actually working under the wholly separate position. This may result in multiple small contracts related to the wholly separate position throughout the year.
For example, if a teacher is taking tickets at the football games during the fall from October–November under an 03 position, then the ED40 contract dates for the 03 position will only cover October–November. If the employee takes tickets during the volleyball games in the spring from March–May under an 03 position, there will be a separate ED 40 for the 03 position covering these dates. There should not be an 03 contract with dates covering the months between the two assignments (December – February) if the employee is not working in the position, as it will result in errors.
If an RE submits an ED40 at the beginning of the school year with dates that span the entire school year, but the employee does not work in the separate position in the first month of the contract, error message 802 will populate on the RP report: ‘Days worked must be reported for the first month of employment in a TRS-eligible position. The TRS-Eligible Contract start date for this position is <<Contract Start Date>>.’
An employer may encounter warning message 801 if an RP record is not submitted each month of the employee’s separate position: ‘The contract start date for this position is prior to the current report month and RP transactions for the prior months do not exist’.
Warning 804 may also populate if the RP report does not contain an RP record for the employee’s separate position. ‘For regular payroll report period MONTH YEAR; no records found for NAME SSN. If the employee has terminated, please submit ED90. If the employee did not work and did not receive any pay in the report period, please submit an RP20 with zeros to confirm’.
Submitting contract dates based on when the employee will work in the separate position and submitting RP records for each report month under the active position will reduce the number of warnings and errors an employer will receive on their monthly TRS reports.