Sometimes Even The Government Gets It Wrong
Posted on 10-Nov-09 by The Timekeeper
You’d think government agencies would know the law as well as anybody, but when it comes to the complexities of wage and hour, it seems just about everybody gets confused now and then.
Dateline New Haven, CT
For instance, it seems the city of New Haven has got some pondering to do now that it turns out they have to pay police recruits overtime when they work more than 40 hours a week during their training.
Up until recently, they’d been requiring trainees to come in early for physical conditioning, but they hadn’t been paying them for the time. They’re still trying to figure out if they have to pay recruits for optional “ride alongs” with experienced officers on weekends.
Cutting out the early morning training could mean some recruits won’t pass the physical required in order to graduate from the police academy. The police chief says the ride alongs are valuable experience. But in an era of cash-strapped governments, they may not be able to afford to pay the overtime to maintain these practices.
Just catching up with the overtime owed over the past two or three years (the extent of the statue of limitations on back pay) could run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to the police union president, Sgt. Louis G. Cavaliere.
Meanwhile, in Nebraska…
In Platte County, it appears they’ve got a classification issue. It seems they’ve been paying pretty much all the county employees (except the Highway Dept., apparently) on a straight salaried basis, when some of them should have been getting overtime, as either salaried non-exempt or hourly.
According to an anonymous elected official, as quoted in the Columbus Telegram, county officials were told several years ago to change their pay practices, but they decided for some reason the change was discretionary and decided to stick with the status quo.
Unfortunately for them, it turns out the provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) aren’t optional. And according to the same unnamed official, the county could potentially be facing a large lawsuit over its pay practices.
Whether the lawsuit comes about or not, though, one thing they’re definitely facing is a big hassle in reclassifying people and getting them set up on a new pay system.
Just goes to show you, wage and hour law is probably more complicated than you think… and just about anybody can get it wrong if they’re not careful.
Related Posts
No Comments
No comments yet.
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
Leave a comment
