DOL issues regulations clarifying excludable items from the regular rate of pay

Workers who are not exempt from overtime, in other word, workers who must be paid overtime, under federal law (the Fair Labor Standards Act) must be paid time and one-half of their “regular rate of pay.” The phrase “regular rate of pay” is not what it intuitively sounds like; it is not simply what the worker regularly gets paid. Instead, there are strict rules for what must be included in a regular rate of pay and for what may be excluded. The DOL issued final regulations, to be effective January 15, 2020, “to confirm that employers may exclude the following from an employee’s regular rate of pay:

  • the cost of providing certain parking benefits, wellness programs, onsite specialist treatment, gym access and fitness classes, employee discounts on retail goods and services, certain tuition benefits (whether paid to an employee, an education provider, or a student-loan program), and adoption assistance;

  • payments for unused paid leave, including paid sick leave or paid time off;

  • payments of certain penalties required under state and local scheduling laws;

  • reimbursed expenses including cellphone plans, credentialing exam fees, organization membership dues, and travel, even if not incurred “solely” for the employer’s benefit; and clarifies that reimbursements that do not exceed the maximum travel reimbursement under the Federal Travel Regulation System or the optional IRS substantiation amounts for travel expenses are per se “reasonable payments”;

  • certain sign-on bonuses and certain longevity bonuses;

  • the cost of office coffee and snacks to employees as gifts;

  • discretionary bonuses, by clarifying that the label given a bonus does not determine whether it is discretionary and providing additional examples and;

  • contributions to benefit plans for accident, unemployment, legal services, or other events that could cause future financial hardship or expense.”

(Quoting the DOL’s web page for these final rules, available here, https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/overtime/2019-regular-rate.)

The final regulations alsoeliminate() the restriction in (FLSA’s) §§ 778.221 and 778.222 that ‘call-back’ pay and other payments similar to call-back pay must be ‘infrequent and sporadic’ to be excludable from an employee’s regular rate, while maintaining that such payments must not be prearranged.” (Quoting that same web page.)

As the DOL notes in its summary above, some sign-on bonuses are excludable, but not all are. The DOL explains in its final rule and the prefatory comments for that rule that it depends on whether the sign-on bonus requires the recipient to do work. Thus a sign-on bonus that is paid before and irrespective of whether work is actually done is excludable, but if that bonus has a clawback provision (if the worker doesn’t end up working, or doesn’t end up working enough hours/days), then it is payment for work provided and becomes not excludable.

In brief, sign-on bonuses with no clawback provision are excludable from the regular rate; sign-on bonuses with a clawback provision pursuant to collective bargaining agreement (CBA), or city ordinance or policy are included in the regular rate; and sign-on bonuses with a clawback provision not pursuant to a CBA, city ordinance or policy, or other similar document that complies with § 778.212, are excludable from the regular rate.

Likewise, the DOL explains “bonuses contingent upon the employee’s continuing in employment until the time the payment is to be made and the like are” not excludable.

The DOL also spent quite a bit of time in the final rule discussing what is a “discretionary bonus” that may be excluded from the regular rate of pay.

Examples of bonuses that may be discretionary include bonuses to employees who made unique or extraordinary efforts which are not awarded according to pre-established criteria, severance bonuses, referral bonuses for employees not primarily engaged in recruiting activities, bonuses for overcoming challenging or stressful situations, employee-of-the-month bonuses, and other similar compensation. Such bonuses are usually not promised in advance and the fact and amount of payment is in the sole discretion of the employer until at or near the end of the period to which the bonus corresponds.

Employers should consider pulling a list of the payroll codes they use for non-exempt workers, marking which they currently considered excluded versus included in the regular rate of pay calculations, then mapping that against the new regulations. In conducting that mapping, and in order to preserve attorney-client privilege and attorney work product protections, they may wish to involve experienced employment law counsel in their internal audit.

Source: “Regular Rate Under the Fair Labor Standards Act,84 Fed.Reg. 68736 (12/16/19).

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