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Operational Memorandum # 6

Overtime Policy (Restatement)

December 16, 1976
Reissued August l, l989
Reissued August 17, 1993

To: All AACS Staff

From: Ronald Lee Logsdon, Executive Director

Re: Overtime Policy (Restatement)

It is now and has always been the policy of the Audubon Area Community Services to limit working time of its employees who are subject to wage and hour limitations to the legally mandated regular working period -- forty (40) hours per week. Some may have abused this policy, reporting unapproved overtime hours worked on Time and Attendance Reports.

Let me re-state that policy (first issued March 31, 1975):

Please note that on the Time and Attendance Report is a column in which you must state specific information regarding claimed compensatory or overtime. No overtime will be approved unless it can be documented and verified. Claims for overtime will be disallowed if no explanation is given (and the overtime was not approved in advance by your supervisor) and may be disallowed unless the explanation is substantial. Overtime claims will be verified on a spot check basis.

For your protection, please get overtime approved in advance by your supervisor. It would be most seldom that this could not be done. Supervisors are hereby instructed to approve overtime requests only in the most necessary instances AND OBTAIN THE PRIOR APPROVAL OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR. The AACS Payroll Manager will not pay for overtime without the Executive Director's sign-off on any time sheet claiming overtime. And he will not sign off on overtime claims he has not approved in advance.

Please plan your work so as to avoid overtime situations. If it appears that I am attempting to eliminate overtime then that is substantially correct. We will honor overtime for agency meetings and other similar functions as well as for excess hours while on travel status. The specific area which we wish to curtail is the unwarranted, undocumented and unapproved thirty minutes, hour, two hours, and so forth. All such claims in the future must stand the test of verification through whatever means available. Legitimate and necessary overtime will be approved subject to proper documentation and verification, if appropriate.

The Wage and Hour Laws now in effect are quite stringent. Thus, we are compelled to enforce a strict policy of overtime control.

More specifically:

1. No staff member may work more than forty (40) hours within a single week -- 12:01 a.m., Sunday through 12:00 midnight, Saturday -- without the specific written approval of the Executive Director, except for the positions specifically enumerated in Section 3.8 of the AACS Personnel Manual.

These exempt positions are determined according to the specifications of the Wage and Hour Law. If you feel that your position has been omitted in error, please consult with me.

Therefore, unless your position is listed in the AACS Personnel Manual as "exempt," YOU MAY NOT WORK IN EXCESS OF FORTY (40) HOURS PER WEEK. Do not report more than forty (40) hours in any Sunday through Saturday work week. This includes travel time to and from meetings and conferences and time in agency-approved conferences and meetings at which an employee's attendance is required.

2. A maximum of 2 1/2 hours of approved compensatory time may be allowed per week for non-exempt employees. The normal AACS work week is limited to 37 1/2 hours per week. Thus, a full-time employee may, with supervisory approval, work up to 2 1/2 hours ("compensatory time") within a single work week. This time may be credited to your Compensatory Leave time. However, you must get your supervisor to approve any "overtime" in advance as outlined above.

3. If for any reason an employee should reach the forty (40) hour per week limit prior to the close of business on Friday of the work week or have any scheduled Friday evening or Saturday work which could result in exceeding the forty (40) hour per week limit, the employee shall notify his or her supervisor and take appropriate time off during normal working hours within the current work week to prevent any time worked without prior approval beyond forty (40) hours.

4. If for any reason a non-exempt employee feels a necessity to work beyond the forty (40) hour limit, he or she must consult the Executive Director through the appropriate supervisor and obtain prior written approval from the Executive Director to work beyond the forty hour week. Otherwise, a non-exempt employee does not have the authority or permission to work beyond forty hours and no excess time may be reported on employee Time and Attendance Reports.

5. It is the responsibility of individual staff members to abide by this policy and the supervisory staff who approve individual time sheets to strictly monitor, regulate, enforce and maintain adherence to this policy by all subject staff.

This statement of overtime policy is consistent with applicable wage and hour laws and the AACS Personnel Policies and Procedures Manual, Section 3.3, "Overtime."

This is a difficult problem for all staff. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.

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Last updated on November 30, 1996 || E-mail Ron Logsdon, AACS executive director