Currently, workers making as little as $23,660 a year can be exempt from making overtime. The Obama administration is bumping that threshold to nearly $47,500 a year with the aim of extending overtime eligibility to middle managers, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
Since 1938, the federal Fair Labor Standards Act has required employers to pay workers a time-and-a-half rate for hours worked in excess of 40 in a week. In 1975, nearly two-thirds of full-time salaried workers were eligible for overtime pay but now the vast majority do not qualify because the salary threshold has only been updated twice in the past four decades, according to the White House.
During budget hearings last fall, the Board of Developmental Disabilities officials were the only county department, board or office to account for the potential rule change.
That department estimated the rule would cost it $250,000 for about 75 employees who would move to hourly wages eligible for overtime.
Finance Director Tawana Keels said this only applies to people in executive, administrative, professional and computer positions, not all county employees in that salary range.
Commissioner T.C. Rogers expressed his displeasure about what he called another unfunded mandate.
“This just goes to show it’s not only what we do here, or how good a job that the commission does, it could be impacted drastically by outside forces,” Rogers said.
But Keels said this may be a good opportunity for the county’s finances by reassessing salary levels.
“We have an opportunity to look at job descriptions, to redistribute work loads,” she said. “In this county last year we paid about $3 million in overtime.”
An “audit” of county positions will be done to figure out the best way to minimize the risk, Keels said, adding that raising salaries for some county employees close to the threshold would take them out of the new overtime bracket.
But Commissioner Don Dixon said one thing they will not do is jeopardize their plan to be debt-free in four years.
“We’re not going to take this as an excuse not to keep our focus directed at our goal and our philosophy for 2020 — no general fund debt,” Dixon said.
The county is paying off $3.8 million in notes this year and will retire $12.3 million worth of bonds and $6.3 million in notes by the end of 2020. The general fund debt stood at almost $100 million in 2009.
The general fund — the budget for this year is $93 million — is backed by taxpayer money, but there are a host of other revenue sources that support all of the departments, boards and offices. The total expenses for all funds was marked at $372.4 million for next year.
The county is anticipating a $2.3 million — or 5.4 percent — jump in sales taxes next year, up to $44.6 million, which is $10 million more than three years ago, according to Keels.
She cautioned, however, that huge leaps in sales taxes in recent years aren’t going to continue forever.
“We need to keep in mind Liberty Center, the construction at least for phase one is completed,” she said. “We also need to look at the economy and what the fed (federal reserve) has been doing. We need to know at some point this growth will plateau and level out.”
The commissioners will pass the tax budget later this summer and get to work on the 2017 budget during budget hearings with office holders and department heads in October.
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