Save the Date For All Staff Meeting!

All staff members should save the date for an all staff meeting to be held the morning of Thursday, August 11 at the Urbandale Community Schools’ Performing Arts Center. All staff will meet together as a group in the morning, and the afternoon will be spent meeting as regions and/or workgroups. More details to come soon!

July 2011 Board of Directors Meeting Agenda

Click here to download the agenda for the July 12 Heartland Board of Directors meeting.

Johnston REC Faxes Now Being Routed Through E-mail

Faxes to the Johnston REC are now being routed to their recipients electronically through e-mail from an account with the name web receptionist. This is the same account that visitors to our website use to ask questions if they don't know who to contact. So if you receive an email from this account, don’t assume that its spam--it is a legitimate message, likely with a pdf of a fax attached. If you have any questions, contact Linda Cool at ext. 14001.

Increase in IPERS Contribution Rates Effective Immediately

Effective July 1, 2011, the IPERS contribution rates for employees and employers increased as mandated by state law. For employees, the contribution rate increases from 4.5% to 5.38%, and for employers, the benefit rate increases from 6.95% to 8.07%. These changes will be reflected starting with your July 15th paycheck. The rate change will increase employee contributions by $8.80 per pay period for each $1,000 of wages, and the employer’s contribution will increase by $11.20 per pay period for each $1,000 of wages.

All staff who are IPERS members should have received a communication from IPERS mailed to your homes about the changes to the IPERS program that were effective July 1, 2011, including the contribution rate increase. If you have any additional questions, contact Payroll Specialists Steve Jordan (ext. 14908) or Michelle Westcott (ext. 14422).

New Employee Online Feature Is Here!

Earlier this year the Agency’s IFAS systems were upgraded to a new version. One key benefit of this upgrade is a new capability called Employee Online. Employee Online is a way for staff members to electronically view and manage certain personal information such as home address, emergency contact information, payroll tax withholding and past pay stubs. As announced in February, we are now able to provide employees with an online pay stub that will eliminate the need to print, fold, stuff and mail these to your home, which will save time and money for the Agency. Another feature of Employee Online is called “What If.” This feature allows you to display current paycheck data and input different data to see the effect on your paycheck.

Accessing Employee Online is easy. Just sign on to your Employee Dashboard, and Employee Online will appear as another navigation tab at the top of the page, just like the Intranet or Leave Online tabs. When you click on the Employee Online tab, you will be directed to its home page. You can move about Employee Online by selecting any of the options on the left hand navigation menu.

Employee Online is designed to provide an intuitive user experience. As such, there are no specific instructions for using it. We hope you’ll find the navigation easy with the use of the menu and edit, back, save and help options on each screen.

We are currently resolving a last minute issue with the Emergency Contact information, so that screen is not available at this time. We hope to have this screen ready for your use very soon. At that time we hope you will review and update your emergency information. We will let you know when this feature is ready.

We will continue to mail paper direct deposit pay stubs to staff members’ homes until September 30, 2011. After September 30 direct deposit pay stubs will only be available online through Employee Online. Your most recent 48 pay stubs will be able to be accessed through the system. Please see Printing Pay Stubs under “EO Help” should you need to print a pay stub.

We’d also like your feedback. Questions about any of the data presented and feedback can be directed as follows: personal information to Carolyn Jones (cjones@aea11.k12.ia.us, ext. 14614) in Human Resources, tax status and paycheck information to Steve Jordan (sjordan@aea11.k12.ia.us, ext. 14908) or Michelle Westcott (mwestcott@aea11.12.ia.us, ext. 14422) in Payroll and browser and website navigation to Rod Howell (rhowell@aea11.k12.ia.us, ext.14599) in Technology.

Iowa Dept. of Education Has New Website

The Iowa Department of Education debuted a new and improved website a few weeks ago. The new URL is http://educateiowa.gov/. Check it out when you have some time.

July 2011 Iowa Dept. of Education School Leader Update

Click here to download the July 2011 issue of the School Leader Update from the Iowa Department of Education.