Philosopher Camus wrote “Always go too far, because that’s where you will find the truth.”
White Pine County Tourism and Recreation Board – November 22, 2016
Discussion on installing heaters in the board room. There were two bids submitted. One by JW Electric for $1390 and another by Gust Electric for $1875.00. The board decided on the bid from J W Electric.
Discussion for possible action: US Department of Labor Compliance with New Regulations Regarding.
“Exempt employees are employees who, because of their positional duties and responsibilities and level of decision-making authority, are exempt from the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
Exempt employees are expected, by most organizations, to work whatever hours are necessary to accomplish the goals and deliverables of their exempt position. Thus, exempt employees should have more flexibility in their schedules to come and go as necessary to accomplish work than non-exempt or hourly employees.
There are strict criteria for meeting the exempt qualification. A manager can’t just decide to make someone exempt for ease of calculating salary, even if the employee agrees to it. To meet the conditions for exemption requires that a job meet specific criteria.
Here are some of the people who do meet the criteria.
Exempt Employees are Often Full Time Employees
The FLSA does not define what is a full time employee or a part time employee. What is counted as a full time employee is generally defined by the employer by policy. The definition of a full time employee is often published in the employee handbook.
A full time employee has traditionally worked a 40 hour work week with the expectation that exempt employees will work the hours necessary to accomplish their jobs. A non exempt employee must be paid overtime for time worked in excess of 40 hours.
Today, some employers count employees as full time if they work 30, 32, or 36 hours a week. In fact, fewer required work hours is considered a non-standard benefit in some organizations.
In many organizations, one differentiation between full time and part time employees is eligibility for benefits such as health insurance, paid time off (PTO), paid vacation days, and sick leave. Some organizations enable part time employees to collect a pro-rated set of benefits.”
The overtime rules were proposed to chang and raises the salary threshold to $47,776 for a full-time worker effective December 1, 2016. This would eliminate overtime pay and comp time. The employee in question earns $35,952.24 (a year) as a hourly employee, with comp time for overtime. With comp time being illuminated, the big question is if this hourly wage person was made a salaried person, would this save the board money? Setterstrom, Howe and Hansen raise the question as to how much overtime was there? The answer was “We don’t keep track of overtime we just estimate it.” Hansen “Can we hire a part-time person to do some of the office work and save money?” Answer “We haven’t been able to train and keep someone in this position.”
Luckily Nevada’s Attorney General along with several other states, did get a judge to put a stay on this for the time being. The board did not have to make a decision at this time.
(My question is why isn’t all time recorded? How do they keep track of comp time? I know these people put in a lot of over time. They set up for every function and are on call for any problems that occur.)
Taxes collected from the room tax was $127,335.93. Distribution of this money was $92,518.15 to White Pine Tourism and Recreation, $20,632.52 to the Railroad, $1078.22 to White Pine County, $4619.02 to the White Pine County Golf Course and $4619.02 to the City of Ely.
Report on the Nevada Northern Railway – locomotive 93 is now out of service until a waiver is received or tubes are redone.
Octobers ridership was 1378 passengers. Ridership was down 5% from previous years for this month. Annual membership was 7817. This is a decrease of 4% over the previous year.
The charts for the November ridership were down, but with the polar express it is expected to rise.
Geri Wop
DECEMBER
9 Chamber Christmas Party 6pm Prosecutor Hotel
25 Community Christmas Dinner 11-3 pm Convention Center
31 Volunteer Fire Department New Years Eve Parth
JANUARY
13-15 Fire & Ice
14 Fireworks Express
20-21 Sheepherders’ Ball
28 Rotary Ice Fishing Derby