US DOL to Conduct Sweep of NC Residential Care Facilities

Knock, Knock! The DOL is at the Door

Posted on 12-Dec-11 by The Timekeeper

Recently, the US Department of Labor (DOL) announced yet another wage and hour compliance sweep, this one targeting residential care facilities in my home state of North Carolina. This would include places such as group homes, nursing homes and other businesses that provide board and care for “children, the aged and individuals with limited self-care abilities.”

According to their release, in the past five years or so the Wage and Hour Division’s Raleigh District Office has conducted 120 investigations of residential care facilities, recovering over $980,600 in back pay for 1,077 employees. Things they suspect they’ll find this time around include:

Failure to pay for work time outside an employee’s scheduled shift,
Failure to pay for time spent attending staff meetings and employer-mandated training sessions,
Deducting 8 hours for sleep time from their pay for people working less than a 24-hour shift,
Failure to pay overtime at a time-and-a-half rate,
Taking improper deductions for uniforms and other items that cause employee pay to fall below the federal minimum wage,
And probably a whole bunch of other crazy things that would curl the average person’s hair and cause a plaintiffs’ lawyer to positively drool with delight.

So, if you’re running this kind of facility in North Carolina and have more than two employees (meaning you’re covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act – FLSA), first check out this fact sheeet on FLSA compliance for the health care industry for more information. Then get on the horn with your employment law advisor to make sure all your payroll policies and procedures are on the up-and-up.

Even if you’re not in North Carolina, if you’re in the residential care business, you’d do well to check your wage and hour policies against the law. These compliance audit sweeps have a way of spreading to other regions. (Not to mention that paying your people properly is simply the Right Thing To Do Anyway.)

After all, as the saying goes, forewarned is forearmed.