Overtime Compensation


Overtime is paid for services performed in excess of 40 hours during a workweek. A workweek does not have to coincide with the calendar week; it may begin any day of the week, but once fixed, it must remain the same unless future conditions of employment require a permanent change.

Rules and regulations for the payment of overtime are promulgated by the Director of the Budget, who also determines the titles and types of positions that are ineligible for overtime. These rules and regulations comply with requirements of the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act for overtime payments due since April 15, 1986.

Overtime is calculated at one and one half times the hourly rate for the position in which the overtime service is rendered.

Where an employee is receiving additional payment(s) such as; Location, Geographic, Shift, Inconvenience, Standby for Recall and Hospital Duty Pay, such payment(s) must be included when calculating the overtime rate. (For a complete list of Additional Payments that are included in the calculation of Overtime as of 3/1/2012)

Where an employee has received payment of a Longevity Lump Sum Payment, the payment is considered part of total annual salary for overtime compensation for a one year period from the authorized payment date.

Where an employee does not qualify for an additional payment(s) until demoted at a later date, the one year period is still determined from the original authorized payment date of qualifying effective date, applicable to the lower grade position, payable from the date of demotion. Where an employee has received a Longevity Lump Sum Payment and is subsequently promoted to a position in which she or he would not qualify for the payment, then the Longevity Lump Sum Payment amount ceases to be included in the overtime calculation.

Where the payment date is fixed, but payment does not occur until a later date due to an error, the authorized payment date remains as the originating date for determining the one-year payment.

Where an employee is entitled to standby on-call pay and/or hospital duty pay during a payroll period when he or she is also entitled to overtime pay, the amount of total standby and/or hospital duty pay due for that period must be factored into the calculation of the overtime rate as follows:

An employee’s basic annual salary is $28683 plus $3026 Location Pay or $1216.23 biweekly. During the period August 7-10, the employee was on standby for 5 shifts and worked 16 hours of overtime.

(1)
$121.62 daily rate
x.25% current negotiated standby rate
$30.41 standby pay for one shift
x 5 number of shifts in this example
$152.05

(2)
$152.05 total standby
x .01955 new factor to compute 1 ½ x standby for one hour
2.9725775 amount to be added to a regular overtime rate (drop mils)

(3)
$23.78 regular overtime rate ($31709 annual salary x .00075 OT factor)
+ 2.97 one hour of standby overtime (from Step 2)
$26.75 adjusted overtime rate including standby

(4)
$26.75 overtime rate (from step 3)
x 16 number of overtime hours in this example
$428.00 total overtime compensation due this period

NOTE: Since standby on-call and hospital duty pay must be included when calculating overtime, these payments must be reported on the same payroll submission cycle as overtime to avoid retroactive adjustments at a later date.

An employee working an inconvenience shift on an intermittent basis must have been assigned to that shift when the overtime service was rendered in order to have inconvenience pay included as part of total annual salary. An employee in a position for which a shift differential has been authorized may not have such differential included for overtime compensation unless he or she is assigned regularly to the night shift. Where an employee is receiving shift differential on a pro-rated basis because he or she is regularly assigned to the night shift for some part of each work week, shift differential would be included in the overtime calculation only for overtime service rendered on the days the employee was assigned to the night shift.

For purposes of computing total hours worked in a week, employee excused time off which is charged to accrued leave credits or time off because of holidays is considered as time worked. Work performed on a holiday as part of the regular work schedule within 40 hours per week is not considered as overtime. The smallest unit of time to be credited as overtime in any one day is quarter hour. (Partial quarter-hour service is rounded-up or rounded-down to determine the nearest quarter-hour.)

When an employee performs overtime service in a position allocated to a higher or lower grade than that of his or her regular position, the annual salary to be used as the basis for computation of the overtime rate is determined as follows:

(1) Lower Grade: The salary used would be the salary at the job rate of the lower grade (or longevity step salary if the employee would otherwise be entitled to longevity if actually demoted to the lower grade). However, the salary may not exceed the employee’s current salary in his or her regular position.

(2) Higher Grade: The salary used would be the salary the employee would receive in the higher grade if he or she were promoted to that grade.

ELIGIBILITY FOR OVERTIME – PART-TIME EMPLOYEES

(1) Part-time employees in overtime eligible positions who render additional service beyond 40 hours during one workweek in the biweekly payroll period are entitled to overtime compensation. Agencies submitting overtime for part-time employees must explain the payment in ‘General Comments’.

(2) Employees in eligible positions who continuously work a percentage of full-time in two or more similar positions in several agencies and who work more than 40 hours in a work week in both positions combined are eligible for overtime compensation.

NOTE: Where a part-time employee in a dual-employment situation (i.e., employment in more than one agency/facility) renders services in one of their agencies in excess of their usual part-time schedule, that agency must communicate with the employee’s other agencies to determine if an overtime condition has occurred. If overtime compensation is due, the agency must explain the payment in ‘General Comments’

There is no change in the rules for payment of compensatory time earned for hours worked between 37 ½ and 40 hours per workweek.

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Civil Service Section 134
Budget Bulletin G-1024


 

 

 


Bureau of State Payroll Services
payroll@osc.ny.gov