A Nanticoke, Pennsylvania, police officer has filed a federal lawsuit in the Middle District of Pennsylvania alleging that the city failed to pay the officer for approximately 15 hours of work over a 2-month period in late 2016. The officer, Kara Kroll, alleges she sustained a work-related injury in October of 2016. As a result, she missed one week of ...
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“Off-the-Books” Paid Time Off Practice Ended for Ohio Police and Firefighters
The City of Akron, Ohio has ended the practice of providing “off-the-books” paid time off to some police officers and firefighters. For more than 30 years, the city had an unwritten policy that allowed some police officers and firefighters take time off in lieu of receiving overtime pay for attendance at community outreach meetings and fire safety events. The paid ...
Read More »Virginia Police Officers File Lawsuit Over Uncompensated “Off-the-Clock” Work
Two Roanoke, Virginia, police officers have filed a federal lawsuit in the Western District of Virginia claiming the City of Roanoke failed to pay police officers for all hours worked in violation of the FLSA and other state laws. While the complaint was only filed by two officers, the suit seeks to add additional plaintiffs over the next several months. ...
Read More »Maryland County May Owe Workers Millions In Unpaid Overtime
According to the Capitol Gazette, county officials in Anne Arundel, Maryland, recently discovered an error in calculating overtime pay for many county employees, including police officers and firefighters. County Executive Steve Schuh admits the unintentional error spans the past 10 to 20 years. The error was recently discovered when the county changed payroll vendors. Initial estimates suggest the county may ...
Read More »The Regular Rate, FLSA, and Firefighters Part IV
This is the fourth installment in a six-part series from FirefighterOvertime.org on the regular rate. Proper calculation of the regular rate is critical. All FLSA overtime must be at least time and one-half of the regular rate. The regular rate has been referred to as the “linchpin” of the FLSA. Not only is calculating the regular rate important, it can ...
Read More »Civilian Public Safety Dispatchers & the FLSA
Today’s FLSA Question: I am a city HR director. We employ civilian public safety dispatchers who handle dispatching for both the police and fire departments. The dispatchers work an average of 42 hours per week. If they work all their assigned shifts, the dispatchers are paid 80 hours of straight time and four hours of overtime every two weeks. The ...
Read More »Sick Leave Buy-Backs and the Regular Rate
Today’s FLSA Question: I recently read (on FirefighterOvertime.org) that money paid to firefighters for unused vacation time typically does not need to be included in a firefighter’s regular rate. Our employment contract provides “bonuses” up to $1,000 annually if a firefighter does not use any sick time in a calendar year, and states that a certain number of unused sick ...
Read More »FirefighterOvertime Update – Police officers settle OT dispute with City of Richmond, VA
The City of Richmond, Virginia, has agreed to pay approximately $50,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by four police officers regarding unpaid overtime. The lawsuit, which was filed in August of 2017, claimed the city failed to pay overtime to officers assigned to the former mayor’s private security detail. The officers claimed the city unilaterally stopped paying overtime for hours ...
Read More »Former California Police Officer Sues City for Unpaid Overtime Related to K9
Adolfo Jimenez, a former police officer for the City of Parlier, California, has filed a federal law suit in the Eastern District of California, claiming the city violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The suit alleges the city failed to adequately compensate Jimenez for off-the-clock work related to the care, training, maintenance, and transport of his police work dog. ...
Read More »Paying Firefighters . . . It’s all about the work period
The FLSA requires any public agency electing to utilize the §207(k) partial overtime exemption for police officers and firefighters establish a work period. In other words, to avoid paying overtime to firefighters and police officers after they work 40 hours every 7 days, the public agency needs to establish a qualifying work period. While establishing a work period may not ...
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