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| Overtime Rules | LINK |
Public safety employees often put in long hours responding to fires and accidents, conducting time sensitive investigations and providing support for sporting events, festivals and other special events. Regardless of the scheduled work week, the nature of the job can create significant overtime liabilities for cities. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) provides rules for overall overtime eligibility and has two special rules for public safety employees that could help reduce or manage overtime liabilities. These rules and eligibility requirements are covered in more detail in the U.S. Department of Labor’s “Fact Sheet #8: Law Enforcement and Fire Protection Employees Under the Fair Labor Standards Act.“
Special Rules for Public Safety Employees
The FLSA provides two exemptions for qualified public safety employees. The first is the 13(b)(20) Total Overtime Exemption, which exempts public safety employers with fewer than five employees from the FLSA overtime requirements. In determining whether a public agency qualifies for the section 13(b)(20) exemption, the fire protection and law enforcement activities are considered separately. Thus, if a public agency employs less than five employees in fire protection activities, but five or more employees in law enforcement activities (including security personnel in a correctional institution), it may claim the exemption for the fire protection employees but not for the law enforcement employees. The second exemption is the 7(k) Partial Overtime Exemption, which allows public safety departments to establish different work periods of 7 to 28 days rather than operate under a seven day workweek standard. This allows more flexibility in scheduling and reduces the potential for overtime. For work periods of at least 7 but less than 28 days, overtime pay is required when the number of hours worked exceeds the number of hours that bears the same relationship to 212 (fire) or 171 (police) as the number of days in the work period bears to 28. For example, fire protection personnel are due overtime under such a plan after 106 hours worked during a 14-day work period, while law enforcement personnel must receive overtime after 86 hours worked during a 14-day work period.
