Outside Sales Exceeds PTO Balance

Kathy in Alabama

We have an employee who is salaried in outside sales. She is paid a biweekly draw, then monthly she is paid commission and the draw is deducted from from the monthly commission total. We have a PTO plan in place consisting of both vacation and sick hours. This employee's usage has exceeded her PTO balance for both vacation and sick because I didn't want to reduce her wages given her salaried status. I paid her full draw /commission, but credited her PTO account to a negative "overdrawn" balance. I've discussed with the manager that her excessive absenteeism should be addressed in a disciplinary manner and he is ready to do this. But in the meanwhile, and for future reference, if absences occur can/should we begin docking her pay for absenses rather than letting the PTO balance continue to be overdrawn? I've checked the DOL website, but did not see a scenerio quite like this one described there. Thanks in advance for your comments.

System

I remember an article from Kansas Employment Law Letter, "Saving PTO for a rainy day -- and handling exempt employees who don't," April 2002. You can find it by logging in to the Subscribers Area of this website. The article was written before the new overtime regulations, and I'm not sure if the new regs change anything in this area.

Good luck.

James Sokolowski
HRhero.com