Furloughs and Exempt Employees

My state governor announced that all state employees (of which I am one) must take 16 unpaid furlough days over the next 2 years.

But how does that work for exempt employees (of which I also am one)?  NB, I am no longer a Legal Secretary, just haven't changed my screen name.

Doesn't an exempt employee have to be paid a full week's pay if he or she works any hours during a given week?  Or is the law different for state government employees?  Or?

I have heard that our state is planning on considering all exempt employees to be "non-exempt" on just those days that they are furloughed.  But can they do that for just a day, or does the "non-exempt" status have to be for (at least) an entire pay period?

I.e., if I usually average 45 hrs/wk (as an exempt employee) and I am furloughed w/out pay on Monday, so then need to put in 11 hrs/day each day on Tuesday through Friday in order to keep up with my work, wouldn't they have to pay me 4 hours at time-and-a-half that week for the 4 hours > 40 because I was being treated as a non-exempt employee for the week?  Or could they treat me as "non-exempt" only for the one furlough day and then consider me "exempt" for the rest of the week? 

I can virtually guarantee that your state has figured out how to furlough you the one day and still not pay you overtime if you have to put in extra hours just to keep up with your work.

Which begs the question.

Why would you put in the extra hours if you just got screwed out of a days pay?

Because if I don't do it, nobody else does either, so then it just piles up deeper and deeper and I get further and further behind?

Then that's what happens.

There are aspects of the Fair Labor Standards Act which the government is exempt from complying with.  (For example, only in the public sector can the employer provide comp time to non-exempt employees in lieu of OT pay.)  If the State is planning on furloughing exempt employees for a day without pay, they're either exempt from this requirement in the FLSA or they've figured out a valid way around it.

"Because if I don't do it, nobody else does either..."

You have a couple of choices.

1)  Enjoy your days off and keep a smile on your face and keep your job.

2)  Worry about something you have no control over, work load, and keep your job.

3)  Don't worry about things you can't control, work load, and keep your job.

4)  Change jobs, which probably isn't a good idea.

Well, I think what happened is that the governor announced it and left it up to the HR folks to figure out how to implement it.

The latest I've heard is that they are going to "spread out" the reduction in pay (due to furlough days) over the entire year, well actually, 2 years regardless of when they are taken.  So basically, its a salary decrease in exchange for more vacation days, which it will be mandatory to take.

I suppose it could be worse.  There are a lot of people who don't have jobs at all.  :-(

My understanding of an exempt job though, is that you are paid to get the job done, not for hours worked.  So if you need to work more hours on the days you are there "in order to get the job done" then that is what you have to do, because that is pretty much the definition of what it means to be an "exempt" employee.

The non-exempt employees, of course, won't work any extra hours to make up for lost time.  But the way I see it, that means that those of us who are "exempt" will not only need to work extra to get our own jobs done, but will also need to put in any extra time necessary to get their jobs done too.

I love my job, and am not going to leave the public sector.  But my understanding is that the next couple of years are going to be more work for less pay, and that's just the way it is.  Next time people start bashing public employees wholesale ("lazy and overpaid" is what they say about us in my state), I hope they realize that public employees make sacrifices too in these tough economic times; we aren't just laying around eating bon bons and collecting cushy paychecks for doing "no" work.

Okay, I found the answer (emphasis mine: section (b)):

----------------------...

29CFR541.710 - Employees of public agencies.

• Section Number: 541.710
• Section Name: Employees of public agencies.

(a) An employee of a public agency who otherwise meets the salary   basis requirements of Sec.  541.602 shall not be disqualified from   exemption under Sec. Sec.  541.100, 541.200, 541.300 or 541.400 on the   basis that such employee is paid according to a pay system established   by statute, ordinance or regulation, or by a policy or practice   established pursuant to principles of public accountability, under   which the employee accrues personal leave and sick leave and which   requires the public agency employee's pay to be reduced or such   employee to be placed on leave without pay for absences for personal   reasons or because  of illness or injury of less than one work-day when accrued leave is   not used by an employee because:      (1) Permission for its use has not been sought or has been sought   and denied;      (2) Accrued leave has been exhausted; or      (3) The employee chooses to use leave without pay.  

(b) Deductions from the pay of an employee of a public agency for   absences due to a budget-required furlough shall not disqualify the   employee from being paid on a salary basis except in the workweek in   which the furlough occurs and for which the employee's pay is   accordingly reduced.