Firefighter Overtime Discussing Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) for Firefighters, First Responders as well as Human Resource & Finance Professional

Providence firefighters have accepted the city’s offer of $5.9 million to settle numerous grievances and lawsuits dating back to 2013 over the way the city paid firefighters. There are several different components to the settlement. Here are a few of the highlights. The settlement resolves a lawsuit originally filed in 2013, which alleged the city failed to pay overtime to ...

Today’s FLSA Question I am the administrator for a nonprofit 501(c)(3) volunteer fire company. We are in the process of hiring our own full-time dispatchers. Currently the county provides dispatch services, however we are transitioning from a completely volunteer organization to a combination department. We want to mirror the county’s compensatory time (comp time) policy. All county employees, including county ...

Six Wichita, Kansas fire investigators have filed a federal lawsuit seeking overtime pay under the FLSA. The City of Wichita currently classifies fire investigators as employees engaged in fire protection activities under the FLSA’s §207(k) partial overtime exemption. The investigators claim they should be classified law enforcement personnel as opposed to employees engaged in fire protection activities for FLSA overtime ...

The City of Palo Alto, California continues to settle claims for unpaid overtime with city firefighters. The city has paid more than $1.5 million in the past year to firefighters and other city employees for failing to include all remuneration in the regular rate of pay for FLSA overtime purposes. Some of these payments stem from a 2016 lawsuit filed ...

The City of Chula Vista, California has agreed to pay over 100 firefighters just over $1 million in back wages and other damages for FLSA violations. The firefighters filed a lawsuit to recover back wages and additional damages in August of 2016. The firefighters claimed the city failed to calculate the regular rate of pay correctly. Proper calculation of the ...

Approximately 119 police officers from Tupelo, Mississippi will be receiving more than $857,000 in back wages following a Department of Labor (DOL) Wage and Hour Division investigation. The DOL determined the city’s “police department failed to adequately record hours worked by police officers” and did not maintain proper records related to “overtime hours or compensatory time owed to officers” as ...

Horry County Fire Rescue wants to hire at least 15 new part-time firefighters. The part-time firefighters would be utilized as “fill-ins” for full-time firefighters in an effort to reduce mandatory overtime in the department. Mandatory overtime is not a new problem for Horry County Fire Rescue. Here is a story from this past summer that first detailed the County’s mandatory ...

Thirteen Hermosa Beach, firefighters have filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The firefighters claim the city improperly calculated the regular rate of pay and failed to pay overtime for all hours worked each work period. Properly calculating the regular rate is critical since FLSA ...

Today’s FLSA Question: I run payroll for a small, full-time paid fire department. In lieu of department-issued cell phones, the fire chief has proposed a $50-per-month flat cell phone reimbursement for members of the command staff. The command staff (non-exempt) are required to have phones and must be available in case of an emergency. Does the FLSA require this reimbursement ...

Today’s FLSA question: I am a paid firefighter. I worked a 24-hour overtime shift a couple of Saturday’s ago. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, it was the last day of daylight savings time. I worked 25-hours instead of 24-hours. But, I was only paid for 24-hours of overtime. Doesn’t the FLSA require payment for all 25-hours? You ...