Several Marshall County employees will soon be eligible to receive overtime pay, following action by the County Council Monday.
New requirements at the federal level mean that county employees making an annual salary under a certain threshold, about $47,000, can no longer be exempt from overtime, starting next month. That left the Marshall County Council with two options: make those employees eligible for overtime or offer them raises to put them over the threshold.
With time running out to make a decision, council president Judy Stone suggested the first option. “I would like to see it stay the way it is now, with those that are below the threshold receiving overtime if they work overtime, and try that for a year and see where it shakes out,” she said. “And the ones that are at or above the threshold will maintain a salaried position.”
The council then voted to approve that recommendation, but not without criticism. County Commissioner Deb Griewank noted that three employees, including the highway administrator and EMA director, are on call at all times. “So if I’m hearing correctly, you folks are telling me that those three employees, December 1, can now start tracking their hours and we will start paying them overtime,” Griewank said. “And they’re on the clock all the time, if the weather’s bad out there. You know, we’re getting into the winter weather. [EMA Director] Clyde [Avery] is around-the-clock all the time.”
She said the county council plan differs from the one the commissioners put together after meeting with various department heads. “We discussed this situation with all of them, and of course, it was according to your well-wishes also, but we were going to leave all of them at their either exempt or non-exempt status, except for one individual, Griewank said. “And we were going to put that individual into the non-exempt status. Currently, they’re at exempt and we were going to put that individual in non-exempt. But other than that, we were going to leave them all the same.”
However, some council members disputed the idea that it would be easier or more cost effective to give those employees a raise, noting the threshold is expected to increase again next year. Stone also pointed out that for either option, no additional pay has been included in next year’s budget.
