Overview

Only full-time employees are eligible for service-in-excess (SIE) contracts. Service-in-excess of 100% payments are paid for overload teaching (overload is defined as teaching duties performed over and above the employee’s normal required teaching load) or for other special projects or assignments normally outside an employee’s routine responsibilities after the service is performed.

Service in excess of 100% payments are designated for specific duties outside the regular responsibilities and are not intended for payment in lieu of a base increase to the salary, and should not be confused with “other duties as assigned.”

The most common examples of SIE in the PPW includes: 

Payment to a faculty member teaching an additional 16-week class (Overload)
Payment to a faculty member to teach an 8-week course such as “Writing to get that job”
Payment to a faculty member to step in and take over a 16-week course from another instructor partway through the semester

Examples of Unacceptable Payments:

Payment to an employee for extra effort pertaining to their normal duties (ex: normally reviews 5 proposals but reviewed 10)
Payment to an employee who has been performing duties at a higher level prior to all necessary approvals being obtained such as OEOA, Provost, Board of Trustees

According to the Campus Administrative Manual and University Statutes the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences is not to approve SIE requests after the date of service has passed.

Process

First, administrative staff must determine that an overload is needed. Usually this is because a course has met minimum enrollment (at least 10 students), but all faculty and graduate employee appointments have already been maxed out.

Next, the administrator, usually a program director, will begin a search for current Specialized Faculty to fill the unassigned SIE. Since graduate employees cannot be employed over 2/3 time, they are not eligible for SIE. In the Program in Professional Writing (PPW), we will first email all eligible instructors for interest. An instructor is eligible for SIE if they’ve taught in the PPW for at least 1 full semester prior.

Once the deadline for volunteering has elapsed, the Director of the PPW will create a list that shows who has first priority when staffing an SIE. This “priority list” begins with instructors who receive SIE least recently and is then organized by seniority. This helps to distribute opportunities fairly while cycling instructors regularly in and out of the top slots. Whoever is in the top slot of the priority list is offered the SIE first. If they turn it down, the next person is then offered the SIE, and so on until the course is staffed.

Once an instructor accepts the SIE, the Director will then forward the necessary employment information to the department’s Business Manager. This necessary information includes: the email in which the employee accepted the SIE, the employee’s name and NetID, the nature of the SIE, the start and end dates, and a rationale for why that work calls for a service-in-excess appointment.

This email should then trigger the Business Manager’s filling out the Request for Service in Excess of 100% form, which should be fully executed before services are performed. They will circulate the Request for Service in Excess of 100% form to the employee, department head, deans, and (if the payment is greater than $5000) Illinois Human Resources.

Once all signatures are obtained, the employee is officially ready to begin their service-in-excess.

Pay

Service-in-excess for an overload course during the academic year is 1/6 the employee’s full-time salary. This SIE compensation will be distributed in the last paycheck of the term, or in the January paycheck for Fall and in the May paycheck for Spring.

If an SIE is for taking over a partially completed course from another instructor, pay may be prorated but the new instructor has the right to negotiate compensation considering the suddenness and difficulties associated.

SIE lump-sum payments are also subject to tax deductions and other fees. All compensated work and deductions should be itemized in your monthly earning statement.

Tips & Pitfalls

As noted elsewhere, the University discourages SIE, so a convincing, but brief, rationale is important for receiving approval quickly.
It is extremely important to check the employment dates are correct on the Request for Service in Excess of 100% form. If it is off even by 1 day, it could mean a payroll error that could delay the employee’s compensation.
Since the process can take some time, at least 3 weeks is recommended for the form to be fully routed for signatures.
There is currently no formal step for notifying the employee or appointing program director when an SIE has been fully routed for approval, so it may be necessary to ask the department Business Manager or HR in LAS for status updates to ensure the form is fully signed prior to work beginning.
Employee earning statements come out before actual payments, so check your last earning statement of the semester as soon as possible. If the SIE lump sum is not reflected as a separate earnings item, then your options are to immediately contact the program Director, department HR representative or Business Manager, or the faculty union for resolution.
Questions concerning the campus’ SIE policy should be directed to the Human Resources Office of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, at LASCollegehiring@illinois.edu.