Last week, the Obama administration released its highly anticipated final regulations and guidelines for the updated Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA) overtime regulations (FLSA guarantees overtime pay of 1.5 times an employee’s regular wages for any time worked over 40 hours a week). These final regulations are a follow-up to those proposed in July of 2015 that generated over 270,000 public comments that helped shape these final guidelines.
The new regulations state that beginning December 1, 2016, the standard overtime salary level threshold will increase from the current $455 per week to $913 per week (annual salary of $47,476). Future automatic updates to those thresholds will occur every three years, beginning on January 1, 2020.
In an August 2015 blog post, we detailed how the proposed regulations at that time might affect parks and recreation. The regulations as they stand now will certainly impact personnel budgets, hiring considerations and more.
These new regulations are being met with mixed reviews on and off Capitol Hill. Major employer interest groups – primarily those representing “smaller businesses” – have previously come out in strong opposition to the original proposed guidelines. Republicans in both the House of Representatives and Senate introduced legislation earlier this year in an attempt to stop the final regulations by effectively preventing the Department of Labor from enforcing them. Last week’s announcement has given these bills even more momentum. At the time of posting this blog, the House bill (H.R. 4773) had over 170 cosponsors — all Republican. The Senate companion (S. 2707) had 40 cosponsors — also all Republican.
More important, both the Speaker of the House of Representatives Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have expressed their strong objections to the new regulations. They have stated their desire to take legislative action prior to the end of the current legislative session and before the new regulations can take effect on December 1. This indicates that there will be attempts to either pass these bills on their own or attach them to other legislation which is moving through Congress and must be approved. An example would be the new federal spending package (appropriations) for the Department of Labor.
Without any expressed support from Democrats in either chamber, however, it is unlikely that legislation to thwart the new regulations will secure enough support to overcome an expected veto by President Obama. This issue has become very political with the November elections fast approaching.
The most likely legislative outcome is a stalemate which would mean no change to the intended new regulations—at least not until 2017 when a new President and Congress are in office.
For a full breakdown of the policy, visit the U.S. Department of Labor website. There you’ll find the formal announcement as well as fact sheets for how this new policy will impact State and Local Governments.
The NRPA Public Policy team has received several inquiries regarding the new regulations and will continue to follow any legislative action and communicate it back out to NRPA members.
Dave Tyahla is NRPA’s Senior Government Affairs Manager.