Public Sector Exempt - Wha'd ya think?

Houston, we have a problem!

I started in my position overseeing payroll (in addition to other duties) a while ago.

One of the first things I questioned was why exempts were to keep time sheets. It took me a while, but I finally got my organization to cease time sheets for exempts, and we now only report benefit-time used, so accounting can adjust benefit accruals appropriately.

I should note that I believe all of our exempts to be properly classified so.

A fall out of this has been the resignation of an exempt public projects (street work, etc.) employee. This person was keeping track of "comp time" on time sheets, even though our personnel manual states thus:

Exempt Employees -

"It is implicit in the nature of certain supervisory positions that time beyond the normal work schedule may often be spent on the job. In recognition of this, the City Manager may, from time to time, award compensatory time off. In addition, the Department Head may, from time to time and at his/her sole discretion, award compensatory time off to supervisors within their department."

We then go on to define supervisor, and outline the exempt positions. When this senior public works super. was hired, in addition to referencing in the offer letter the applicable section of the personnel manual written above, the City Manager handwrote on a copy of the same page of the personnel manual that:

"If [xxx]. xxxxxx earns over 40 hours of compensatory time in the fiscal year, I will consider [xxx] request for usage dependent upon the needs of the organization" and signed it.


The record keeping was never requested by the organization, and this person continued to do so after numerous requests to stop. This person was formally counselled that being offered "compensatory time" at the organization's discretion would not require record keeping, as he was exempt, and if this person needed time off, all they needed to do was alert management and if nothing was pressing, go.

This person handed in a resignation shortly thereafter claiming we violated an employment agreement, and that they were due compensation for the accrued time being recorded.

We've accepted the resignation, but have no intention of honoring his demand for compensation.

This is as vaugely specific as I can be considering. Additionally, we state (on the same page of the per. man.) exempt employees do not recieve overtime, and for non-exempts (on the same page of the per. man.) we define comp time as electable between time off or cash 1.5 payments. We also limit accrual to 40 hours (legally).


What say you?

Comments

  • 1 Comment sorted by Votes Date Added
  • Having worked in public sector HR for over 20 years, I'm not quite sure what the brouhaha is about from an HR point of view. Obviously, an attorney will need to address whether or not the note signed by the City Manager is sufficient to be seen as a binding contract of some kind, and if it is, whether the condition based upon "the needs of the organization" were met to deny overtime.

    I assume though that the employee was not absolutely free to work beyond scheduled hours or less than scheduled hours without bringing it to his superivsor first to get some type of acquiescence or concurrence.

    You know, under FLSA regulations, exempt emplyees who work in the public sector not only may accrue overtime, as is allowed by DOL for any exempt employee; but the governmental jurisdiction may dock their salaries (under specified conditions) for partial days' absences (outside of FMLA) under its ordinances or policies for public accountability without jeopardizing the exempt status.

    [url]http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/get-cfr.cgi?TITLE=29&PART=541&SECTION=5d&YEAR=1998&TYPE=TEXT[/url]
Sign In or Register to comment.