Compensatory Time for non-exempt employees

3558816

This is my first time online asking a question and forgive me if you have covered this before, but I could not find it when I searched. For 18 years I worked in the public sector and for those employees who were covered under FLSA(non-exempt), they were given the option of receiving compensatory time rather than salary for overtime. I now work for a small non-profit and the rule that they follow here is that according to them, by law, they are not allowed to give the employee the option of earning compensatory time,they must pay them. Is there a difference because of government versus the private sector? May our non-exempt employees be given the choice of pay or compensatory time? Is there any written citation to cover this issue? Your response in this matter would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Shadowfax

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 06-07-05 AT 07:53AM (CST)[/font][br][br][font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 06-07-05 AT 07:37 AM (CST)[/font]

Yes, the difference is that private sector may not use comp time while public sector may.

Sorry, forgot your cite: 29 USC 207 (o).

Also forgot to say Welcome to the forum!

3558816

Thank you for the welcome and the answer. I suspected that was the reason but wanted confirmation.
Ilene

HRCalico

marc may weigh in on this with some sage advice, but I'll tell you that in my previous non-profit life, the 40-hour work week was strictly enforced with discipline. Our pay week ran something like Wednesday-Tuesday, so if they had an event over the weekend, or whatever, they'd adjust their time on Tuesday. I suspect that was due to a lot of empty offices on Friday afternoons with a more "normal" pay week. Anyway, our grants wouldn't support OT, so if we had to pay it, it was a huge pinch on the budget.

marc

Hi Ilene, welcome to the forum!

As Shadowfax and HRCalico confirmed, there is a difference between the public entity and the non-profit world. Compensatory time off is a no-no in the private sector.

For the hourly (non-exempt) EEs, you must pay for time worked - ovetime cannot be banked in the same way it can in the public sector.

You can play around a little with the schedules in the same pay week. For example a 12 hour day on Monday can be offset with a 4 hour day on any other day of the payweek - as long as you do not exceed 40 hours during the payweek, but the EE cannot put those extra hours in their pocket and use them later.

Before my time, our non-profit used to do that very thing. Everyone was paid twice a month as though they were on salary. Timesheets even had a Comp Time Off accumulator so they could keep track of the extra hours they worked. We realized the error of our ways, looked back over a two year period and calculated the hours that should have been paid as OT and came up with an amount per EE that was due as back pay.