FLORIDA, USA, August 10, 2016 (by Renata Sago, WGCU News): HPI Note: This article is on a technical subject which could potentially impact Hindu temples in the US. We’re not offering any advice on just how this applies to a temple, but it is something for temple trustees and administrators to be aware of and to consult with their attorneys and accountants about.
A new law will raise the salary threshold for overtime across the country. All those extra hours that went into a void will have a paycheck attached to them come December. But for employees at nonprofits, that’s not so simple. In an industry where fundraising is king and long hours, queen, administrators are scrambling to figure out how they’ll comply with the new law. But come December, the Council and mission-based nonprofits like it will have to track that. It used to be if a federal workers made $23,660 they were exempt from overtime pay. The new law nearly doubles that amount to $47,476.
David Thompson with the National Council of Nonprofits says it does not take much analysis to see this new law will put nonprofits across the country between a rock and a hard place. In a recent national survey he found many are bracing themselves to pay overtime. “A third said that they’re going to have to reduce staff to make ends meet and another third said they’re going to have to reduce services,” he adds. “To a nonprofit, reducing services is the absolute worst thing you could do.
“But national workers’ rights groups like Jobs with Justice–also a non-profit–can think of one thing that is worse: employee burnout. “That leads to people leaving,” says labor policy analyst Michael Wasser. “Making sure that they can go home and recharge can have long-term sustaining benefits because you don’t have to go out and recruit, train up, rebuild that knowledge.” But, experts expect tough decisions in the coming months from agencies that get state and federal grants, which have special rules for how nonprofits can use them.
Nonprofits aside, Mark Neuberger, employment attorney at Foley & Lardner LLP, says how employers deal with overtime is simply counterintuitive. “The law was passed at a time when men–and I mean men–went to work–and if the man wore a white shirt, they didn’t get overtime and if they wore a blue shirt, they punched the clock and got overtime. Life today is not nearly so simple.” He says the law could change depending on who gets elected in November.