Central Payroll Bureau

Welcome to the Central Payroll Bureau (CPB) site. Established in 1953, we handle and provide payment of salaries and wages for all state employees whose salaries are paid from funds appropriated by the General Assembly. We serve over 100,000 state workers every two weeks.

CPB strives to provide quality payroll services in the issuance of paychecks, deposit advices and W-2 wage statements for all permanent and contractual employees of all branches of state government.

The bureau is currently complimented by three units including Operations, Accounting and Reporting and Information Technology.

CPB Mission Statement

To provide accurate, timely, efficient, and customer friendly payroll services to all State of Maryland employees in a secured environment. Provide competent and friendly support services related to administration of voluntary and mandatory payroll deductions, subsidies and taxes.

Operations

CPB Operations staff is responsible for:

  • Accurate and timely production of three distinct payroll systems every two weeks for approximately 104,000 state employees
  • Posting of personnel transactions received from the Department of Personnel, the University of Maryland System, the Department of Transportation and several other small entities
  • Handling over 140,000 personnel transactions (just in July) due to employee increments and COLA's. All must be processed in a three week timeframe
  • Bi-weekly review/auditing of payroll transactions received from approximately 242 state agencies via the online ETR/PTR process
  • Managing electronic receipts of pay transactions from the University of Maryland System and the Department of Transportation
  • Processing in excess of 14 million deduction transactions with an additional 44,000 direct deposit changes on an annual basis
  • Processing and collecting over $2 million annually for the Maryland Charity Campaign through our payroll deduction process

Accounting and Reporting

CPB Accounting and Reporting staff is responsible for:

  • Reconciliation of the state's payroll accounts for every pay period
  • Bi-weekly verification and submission of federal and state withholding tax deposits
  • Social Security biweekly tax deposits, quarterly adjustment reports and annual W-2 information
  • Bi-weekly processing of check refunds/recoveries and/or check cancellations for all state employees (serving over 242 agencies)
  • Timely & accurate interface with the state's accounting system (R*STARS)
  • Bi-weekly processing of over 500 individual vendor payments
  • Bi-weekly collection, reconciliation and distribution of approximately $450,000 for over 3,000 child support payments
  • Bi-weekly collection, reconciliation and monthly distribution of approximately $300,000 for an average of 2,800 wage garnishment orders
  • Production, accountability and distribution of approximately 138,000 W-2's by the 1st week in January

Informations Technology (IT)

CPB IT staff is responsible for:

  • Payroll database access and extranet application security
  • Production control to include schedules, initial checkouts and distribution of production processes/reports
  • Electronic vendor interfaces
  • Monitoring and control of our mainframe database and supporting extranet applications (Tax Calculator & POSC - Payroll Online Service Center)
  • Detailed working knowledge of the entire Payroll System
  • Coordination with members of the Information Technology Division, concerning development, testing and implementation of all system enhancements
  • Mainframe application and extranet site 'HELP DESK' support to employees

As you can see, payroll is anything but easy. I keep remembering what a former director would often say "It takes a village to raise a child" and I couldn't agree more. Every decision requires constant review of the many governing federal and state guidelines to ensure our compliance with the law. That can't be done with just one person, it takes the entire staff. I'm very proud of our CPB staff members and their dedication to always strive for that Olympic score of "10" each and every day.

Contact Information

General Contact Information: 410-260-7401
email: cpb@marylandtaxes.gov