The Department of Labor is proposing to update regulations governing which executive, administrative, and professional employees (white collar workers) are entitled to the Fair Labor Standards Act’s minimum wage and overtime pay protections.

ICMA surveyed members of the Governmental Affairs and Policy Committee on the proposed regulations and submitted comments to the Department Of Labor based on the feedback. A majority responded that the proposed standard salary level was not reasonable for their community and 75 percent of the respondents indicated they did not support the rule change as proposed.

The specific changes proposed by the Department of Labor include:

1. Set the standard salary level at the 40th percentile of weekly earnings for full-time salaried workers ($921 per week, or $47,892 annually).
2. Increase the total annual compensation requirement needed to exempt highly compensated employees (HCEs) to the annualized value of the 90th percentile of weekly earnings of full-time salaried workers ($122,148 annually).
3. Establish a mechanism for automatically updating the salary and compensation levels going forward to ensure that they will continue to provide a useful and effective test for exemption.