Payroll & Benefits Specialist

Surrey Schools (School District #36 Surrey); Surrey; On-site; CAD 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

The Surrey School District is seeking a Payroll & Benefits Specialist to manage payroll processing and compliance for a diverse range of employees. Responsibilities include calculating pay and benefits, resolving discrepancies, and ensuring adherence to internal controls. Applicants must have relevant experience and training, including a Payroll Compliance Practitioner certification.

Benefits

Municipal Pension

Health benefits

Vacation and sick benefits

Qualifications

• Minimum of four years of experience in a similar role.
• Experience with computerized payroll systems.
• Must hold Payroll Compliance Practitioner certification.

Responsibilities

• Processes employee pay and benefits accurately and on time.
• Calculates payroll adjustments and ensures compliance with regulations.
• Communicates with staff and external parties to resolve complex payroll issues.

Skills

Attention to detail

Mathematical abilities

Customer service

Communication

Education

Diploma in payroll, accounting, or business administration

Payroll Compliance Practitioner certification

Tools

Microsoft Office Suite

Job description

Payroll & benefits Specialist 18.75 hrs/week on a continuing basis

Payroll Compliance Professional Certification Required

The Surrey School District respectfully acknowledges that our schools reside on the traditional, unceded, and shared territories of Coast Salish peoples: The q íc y - Katzie, the qwa:nn - Kwantlen and the SEMYOME - Semiahmoo First Nations, who have been stewards of this land since time immemorial.

Surrey Schools values an inclusive school district where equity is deeply embedded, and diversity welcomed. We acknowledge the profound responsibility we all have in ensuring that our schools and district sites foster an atmosphere where everyone feels secure, respected, and valued. Our commitment to providing a quality education extends beyond academic excellence; we are committed to creating and cultivating diverse, inclusive, and barrier-free environments for all applicants, employees, students, and their families. Our identity, as Surrey Schools, is expressed in the shared values of openness, fairness and tolerance and recognizes the importance of diversity of identity and thought. We are an equal opportunity employer and welcome applicants from all backgrounds.

Surrey Schools, recipient of the BC Top Employers and Canada's Greenest Employer awards, is the largest school district in BC and the second largest employer in Surrey. Spread across one of the fastest-growing cities in British Columbia, Surrey Schools provides quality education to over 82,000 students with 124 schools sites and a variety of other learning facilities, offering a broad range of innovative programs and services to support the learning of our students. The Surrey School District team of approximately 13,000 employees works tirelessly every day to ensure that children are getting the best start they can, providing the preparation to be our leaders of tomorrow.

Payroll & Benefits Specialists performs a variety of complex tasks to ensure that employee pay, and benefits are processed accurately and on time. The work is complex and mission critical, and requires strong judgement, problem solving skills, and attention to detail.

Payroll & Benefits Specialists have the primary responsibility to account for extremely large expenditures of wages and benefits. The work requires continual concentration in analyzing and processing large volumes of data from a variety of data sources to meet inflexible deadlines; troubleshooting and resolving discrepancies; explaining pay, benefits, deductions, and entitlements to employees; and responding to inquiries from internal and external stakeholders.

Tasks include calculating pay, benefits, and applicable adjustments; providing guidance and support to employees in their use of online payroll applications; and ensuring compliance with legal and regulatory requirements. Problem solving involves analyzing situations, determining an appropriate course of action, and communicating effective solutions to various stakeholders involved. Payroll & Benefits Specialists apply collective agreements and employment terms and conditions for multiple employee groups and must maintaining confidentiality of sensitive information.

A Payroll & Benefits Specialist reports to a Payroll & Benefits Team Leader and Management.

Typical Responsibilities

• Monitors operations to ensure adherence to internal controls and achievement of quality, service standards and deadlines, and acts to correct concerns.
• Communicates with other units, staff, users and external parties to resolve complex and unusual issues.
• Designs and utilizes complex spreadsheets. Produces complex reports from databases using specialized software.
• Provides customer service support and assistance by explaining and demonstrating Payroll processes and application software.
• Participates in hiring of new staff, organizes and conducts training
  
  

Payroll Responsibilities

• Runs interfaces, conduct audit trails and uploads information into the payroll system to process payroll.
• Calculates payroll adjustments such as special and top-up payments, shift premiums, vacation pay, retroactive pay, benefit premium deduction adjustments, paid leave entitlements, and final payments; all in accordance with internal requirements such as collective agreements and employment contracts, and external regulations and requirements set by government agencies such as the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), Service Canada, Workers Compensation Board, BC Pension Corporation, etc.
• Analyzes, processes, and maintains sick leave entitlement banks, vacation entitlement banks, banked overtime, seniority dates, probation periods, and pay scale increment experience banks.
• Runs pay processing, reviews payroll register and deduction arrears register, runs audits and checks for accuracy.
• Determines and applies taxable benefits to ensure that T4s are accurately reported in compliance with Canada Revenue Agency requirements.
• Issues Records of Employment in accordance with complex Service Canada requirements whenever applicable.
  
  

Benefits Responsibilities

• Reviews, determines and administers benefit plan enrolments, changes, and terminations and sets up group benefit deductions in the payroll system in compliance with contractual obligations and benefit plan provisions.
• Coordinates Workers' Compensation recoveries with WorkSafe BC and applies required adjustments to pay, sick leave credits, tax deductions and T4 reporting.
  
  

Job Requirements

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND ABILITIES

Knowledge

• Advanced level knowledge of the Microsoft Office Suite of products relevant to the work, including Word, Excel and Powerpoint.
  
  

Skills And Abilities

• Skill in organizing and prioritizing work effectively to meet deadlines and achieve service standards.
• Superior accuracy, attention to detail, and mathematical abilities.
• Ability to communicate proficiently in oral and written English utilizing the terminology of business, payroll, and benefits.
• Excellent interpersonal, communication, customer service and teamwork skills when dealing with internal and external stakeholders.
  
  

Training And Experience

• Diploma from a recognized post-secondary institution, in payroll, accounting, or business administration, plus training and experience with complex computerized payroll systems, word processing and spreadsheet software at an advanced level.
• Minimum of four years progressive, extensive experience directly related to the job requirements and responsibilities (preferably in the public sector) and in a similar computerized financial services environment in a large organization with collective agreements and multiple employee benefit plans, or an equivalent combination of training and experience.
  
  

LICENCES, CERTIFICATES AND REGISTRATIONS

• Payroll Compliance Practitioner (PCP) certification from the National Payroll Institute, required. Without this certification, your application cannot be considered.
  
  

All successful applicants are required to join the union, CUPE Local 728 upon hire. As per the CUPE collective agreement, the starting wage for this position is $37.51 per hour with an attractive benefit package which includes: Municipal Pension, health, vacation & sick benefits which are effective after minimum 6 months based on hours.

Qualified applicants can apply on Make a Future. The closing date for this position is Friday, July 18, 2025 at 4:00 pm PST.

Note: Successful applicants will be required to consent to a Criminal Records Search prior to employment. Only those applicants selected for interviews will be contacted. To all others, thank you for your interest.