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Estimating Academic Leave Pay

To estimate your biweekly gross salary while on academic leave, the following guidelines should be helpful. Specific salary payment and deductions questions should be addressed to the Employee and Retiree Service Center (ERSC):

1. Remember to use the salary schedule that will be in effect for the next school year, not the current one, when determining your annual salary.
2. Decide whether you will compute your academic leave pay based on your current step or your next step increase if you will receive an anniversary or merit increment during the time you will be on academic leave. For ease of calculations, if your anniversary will occur between July and January, use the salary on the anniversary step. If your anniversary will occur between February and June, then use the salary on your current step.
3. Calculate 50% or 60% of the salary determined in Step 2 above.
4. Divide the 50% or 60% annual salary by the number of pay periods for the next school year. 10-month teachers usually receive 20 full paychecks and 2 partial paychecks at the beginning and end of the school year. 12-month employees usually receive 26 full paychecks in a school year. The number resulting from your calculation is your estimated, ten-day biweekly gross before any deductions are taken.
5. Retirement:
• Calculate 2.1% of your 50% or 60% annual salary and divide that amount by 20 to reach a biweekly deduction if you are in the State and MCPS or MCPS Pension only system.
• Calculate 5.5% up to 7.5% of your 50% or 60% annual salary and divide that amount by 20 to reach a biweekly deduction, if you participate in the retirement system.
• If you are in the old pension system, you will only make a pension contribution when your gross wages have reached the social security maximum for the year. Deduct 5.5% up to 7.5% of your biweekly gross.
6. Social Security and Income Tax Estimates:
• 7.65% of the biweekly gross for social security; 7.5% of biweekly gross for state income tax deductions; and 20% of biweekly gross for federal income tax deductions. These are conservative estimates. If you wish to change your tax exemptions for the year you are on leave, you must complete a W-4 form and submit it to ERSC.
7. Insurance:
• If you are a member of an insurance plan, call the ERSC to obtain your biweekly insurance deduction amount.
8. Tax Deferred Annuity:
• ERSC will continue to deduct your tax deferred annuity deduction. If you wish to continue, change, or stop a tax-deferred annuity, you must contact your carrier to determine the amount you are allowed to deduct. The required forms must be sent from your carrier to ERSC, indicating how the amount you wanted deducted from each paycheck..
9. Flexible Spending Accounts:
• When you go on academic leave (as well as any other long-term leave), you can no longer contribute to your Flexible Spending Account (FSA) or submit reimbursement claims for medical expenses incurred while on leave. Therefore, do not subtract your FSA contribution from your biweekly gross pay. .
10. Miscellaneous Deductions:
    • Subtract all of your other current biweekly deductions (e.g., union dues) from the 50% or 60% biweekly gross pay to have a conservative estimate of your biweekly net pay while on leave.