Monroe County Commissioner Craig Cates on Thursday, April 30 will propose that the county rescind its earlier authorization for emergency response overtime pay that would have paid some salaried county employees who aren’t normally entitled to overtime two and a half times their usual salary simply because they had to leave their homes to do their job, Cates said.
“Just in the past two pay periods, one of which hasn’t even ended yet, the county’s tally for overtime pay totals about $1.5 million,” Cates said on Monday when the County Commission agenda was published. “I spoke with the County Clerk and he said the county simply doesn’t have the money.”
In addition to the cost, there is concern about some employees with higher salaries earning significant overtime pay while other lower-paid county workers were furloughed and potentially saw their paychecks decrease.
The proposed resolution states that hourly county employees working more than 40 hours will continue to receive any legitimate overtime payments guaranteed by the Fair Labor Standards Act.
The proposed resolution, if passed, will direct “the clerk not to pay any emergency response work pay, except for that overtime amount that an employee would be entitled to be paid under the Fair Labor Standards Act.”
The resolution also asserts, “Monroe County is the only county that authorized emergency response work pay for the COVID-19 crisis,” and “…according to information provided by the Clerk, the County lacks sufficient funds to pay the costs associated with the emergency response work pay.”
The Board of County Commissioners will meet virtually at 11 a.m. on Thursday, April 30. The complete agenda is available here.
