Exempt Employees
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I work for a public entity and there is still a disagreement among exempt personnel on how time off should be recorded.
Each employee records their time worked either electronically or on paper.
Some personnel charge partial days off towards their bank time. Other personnel do not charge their time off and will show it as an 8 hour day worked.
We would like to have a policy to avoid any misunderstandings or conflicts and have it applied consistently among all exempt personnel.
It is about accountability and it is felt by some that if an employee is receiving a salary based on a 40 hour work week that 40 hours must be worked and anytime off should be charged to bank time. Those who do not charge partial days off many times do not work 40 hours.
I have also heard that FLSA prohibts partial day deductions for exempt personnel - and that this rule applies only to private sector.
I would appreciate any and all help. Remember we are a public entity.
Thanks,
Each employee records their time worked either electronically or on paper.
Some personnel charge partial days off towards their bank time. Other personnel do not charge their time off and will show it as an 8 hour day worked.
We would like to have a policy to avoid any misunderstandings or conflicts and have it applied consistently among all exempt personnel.
It is about accountability and it is felt by some that if an employee is receiving a salary based on a 40 hour work week that 40 hours must be worked and anytime off should be charged to bank time. Those who do not charge partial days off many times do not work 40 hours.
I have also heard that FLSA prohibts partial day deductions for exempt personnel - and that this rule applies only to private sector.
I would appreciate any and all help. Remember we are a public entity.
Thanks,
Comments
You are correct that partial day deductions ARE allowed for public entities. I can't recall the FLSA section, but it's there. It has exactly what you referred to as the reason: public taxpayer accountability.
The safest answer for your entity is to require all exempts to account for every hour not at work by using "bank" time (vacation/sick leave/etc), which is probably the policy you have in place for your non-exempts. There should be no public disapproval if you do that.
That being said, there are probably a lot of public employers who are less formal, generally because the Exempts must often put in more than 40 hours per week by attending evening/weekend meetings, or need to do their job by checking on activities outside their normal hours (in our case, that's Police, Fire, Utilities, Parks, Streets). Often the approved practice is therefore to not account for the arriving late or leaving early or late lunch or one hour dental exam or the personal errand or two. More than one hour absence may require accounting for.
The problem with having a written policy that allows, say, one hour or less of unaccounted for time is that you are publicly stating that it's okay for mostly high income persons to receive free pay for no work, while all other employees are not treated that way, let alone the fact that whomever is funding your entity (taxpayers/donors) will not generally be pleased with such a use of their money. Whomever is at the top of your public entity can count on getting heat from such a policy, if they approve it in the first place.
There are other arguments that could be made on both sides, but I'm going to stop. Ultimately, you'll have to figure out what is best for your unique entity, considering a lot of factors. Good luck.