Overtime Pay

When revelers usher in the year 2000 in the state capital this New Year's Eve, locations such as City Hall and the dock area will not be part of First Night Annapolis' alcohol-free celebrations for the first time in a decade.At last night's City Council meeting, Mayor Dean L. Johnson announced that First Night officials had withdrawn their application to lease city-owned facilities for the annual event, saying they could not afford the terms of the agreement. City officials had been trying to work out a lease with First Night Annapolis in accordance with a law enacted in February under which event organizers are charged for city services and facilities.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court refused yesterday to reopen a constitutional dispute over Congress' power to require overtime pay for state and local government employees, rebuffing a challenge by the Baltimore Police Department.The justices' action did not end the dispute between the city and the Fraternal Order of Police. The case will return to lower courts for a trial on still-open issues, though officials at the union local, Lodge 3, raised the prospect of an out-of-court settlement.

Twenty-three Baltimore public works employees doubled their regular salaries with overtime last year because the department failed to adequately monitor $15.5 million in extra pay, according to an audit released by City Comptroller Joan M. Pratt yesterday.The audit found that 224 other city public works employees made overtime equal to 50 percent of their salaries between July 1998 and March. One unidentified highway maintenance supervisor with an annual salary of $27,745 made $48,552 in overtime, according to the audit.

A federal appeals court has ruled that Anne Arundel County must pay its paramedics overtime, a decision local officials say could have a "staggering" impact on their budgets.The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Annapolis ruled in a case brought by 143 Anne Arundel paramedics that they cannot be classified as firefighters. That classification would have exempted them from federal laws requiring overtime after a 40-hour work week.The court awarded the paramedics lost overtime pay, interest on the payments back to 1988 and attorney's fees.

A federal appeals court has ruled that a 6-year-old lawsuit on which Baltimore has already spent $1.3 million in legal fees must go forward, potentially costing the city millions of dollars in back overtime pay for police supervisors.The Sept. 23 ruling by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., sends the case back to Baltimore for trial. It involves 180 sergeants and lieutenants fighting not only for the right to overtime pay, but money retroactive to 1989.City Solicitor Otho M. Thompson vowed yesterday to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A federal court decision awarding Anne Arundel County paramedics overtime pay could create new difficulties in a county with a tax ceiling and a Fire Department that spends more on overtime than any other department.Retroactive pay for the 143 paramedics who brought the lawsuit could add nearly $4 million to the EMS/Fire/Rescue budget of $46.6 million, officials said. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals decision, rendered Feb. 18 in Richmond, Va., could open the door to suits for overtime by firefighters who give medical aid.The ruling's possible repercussions could change the Fire Department's structure and harden distinctions between firefighters and paramedics that the fire chief has struggled to obliterate.

WASHINGTON -- Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist temporarily spared Anne Arundel County yesterday from having to pay nearly $3 million in overtime pay to 141 firefighters who work mainly as emergency medical technicians.The county will not have to provide that pay until after the Supreme Court takes final action for or against the county's claim that it is unconstitutional to force local fire departments to obey the federal law that sets maximum hours and overtime pay at time-and-a-half rates.

A federal court decision awarding Anne Arundel paramedics overtime pay could create new difficulties in a county with a tax ceiling and a Fire Department that spends more on overtime than any other department.Retroactive pay for the 143 paramedics who brought the lawsuit could add nearly $4 million to the EMS/Fire/Rescue budget of $46.6 million, officials said. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals decision, rendered Feb. 18 in Richmond, Va., could open the door to suits for overtime by firefighters who give medical aid.The ruling's possible repercussions could change the Fire Department's structure and harden distinctions between firefighters and paramedics that the fire chief has struggled to obliterate.

Heeding the city Law Department's request for help in specialized legal matters, Baltimore's top officials voted yesterday to hire three outside firms at a cost of more than $500,000, including a $100,000 retainer to former City Solicitor Neal M. Janey and another attorney.The Board of Estimates -- a five-member panel that includes the mayor, council president and comptroller -- approved the expenditures with little public discussion.The cases include a dispute about overtime for police officers and a legal tussle over water rights at the Susquehanna River.

At least one thing was made clear at last night's County Council meeting, where members discussed the new personnel system scheduled to take effect in the fall for Howard County's 1,850 employees: Police and Fire Department middle managers will most likely continue receiving overtime pay.Earlier this month, a consultant's report recommended that police sergeants and lieutenants and fire captains and battalion chiefs be exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act,...

Madonna adoption request rejected On Friday, a judge rejected Madonna's request to adopt a second child from Malawi and said it would set a dangerous precedent to bend rules requiring that prospective parents live there for some period. Madonna's lawyer, Alan Chinula, said he has "filed notice for appeal in the Supreme Court of Appeal." The country's child welfare minister had come out Thursday in support of the pop superstar's application to adopt a 3-year-old. But in a lengthy ruling Friday, Judge Esme Chombo sided with critics who have said exceptions should not be made for the star, who has set up a major development project for the impoverished African country.

WASHINGTON -- The nation's growing cadre of home health care aides is not entitled to minimum wages or overtime pay under federal law, even if they work for private employers, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday. The 9-0 decision, which keeps in place a long-standing rule that denies minimum wages and overtime pay to those who provide "companionship services" at home, could trigger a move in Congress to amend the law. With an estimated 1 million workers now assisting the elderly and the disabled in their homes, unions and civil rights groups had urged the justices to scrap this rule because they say it deprives many of the nation's lowest-paid workers of a living wage.

Six Baltimore police officers who have been suspended with pay over allegations that they abused overtime each made more than $100,000 in the 2006 fiscal year, with two officers more than doubling their base pay, according to city salary data reviewed by The Sun. The officers all worked in the Eastern District last summer when an internal audit uncovered possible "irregularities" with their overtime pay, police have said. Police officials placed the four officers and two sergeants on administrative duties last week, meaning their law enforcement powers are suspended.

Six Baltimore police officers were suspended yesterday as part of an internal affairs investigation into possible "irregularities" with their overtime pay, a department spokesman said. The officers - two sergeants and four detectives - worked in criminal investigations in the department's Eastern District when they filed for overtime that is now being reviewed by internal affairs investigators, police said. One of the sergeants was recently transferred to the Northeastern District, police said.

Does your office remind you of high school? You know what I'm talking about. The same group of co-workers eat lunch and take coffee breaks together. Or they gossip and hang out during and after work. Office cliques are ingrained in our workplaces, just as they were in high school. And while cliques often conjure up bad memories of our teenage lives, some workplace experts say they can be positive and healthy at work - as long as they're handled professionally. After all, office friendships and being part of a social network make work feel less like work.

A union official sharply criticized the state Department of Juvenile Services yesterday for demoting 11 workers who collected overtime pay for training sessions they could not attend -- payments that were authorized by a supervisor who also was disciplined. Ron Bailey, executive director of American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Council 92, said the agency was "scapegoating" workers at the Cheltenham Youth Facility in Prince George's County for its management failures.

Two years after a restructuring intended to rein in overtime, the Anne Arundel County Fire Department could spend a record $9 million in overtime and other extra pay this fiscal year, about $5.5 million over the budgeted amount, an auditor's report warns. The red flag on overspending comes less than three years after the department paid a record $7.2 million in overtime -- some of that spent improperly and some because of inadequate management -- and after then-Fire Chief Roger C. Simonds was forced out of office in 2004 because of the overtime issue.

Is it against labor laws for a manager to change your timecard to make it look as if you punched in later? I have a friend who is experiencing this, and she asked me to find out if the boss is allowed to shave time off the card. To put it in today's teen vernacular: "This is so not legal." If your friend is an hourly employee, she has to be paid for all the time she works. Shaving time off her timecard doesn't change what she is owed. It does, however, put her company at risk of being audited and maybe fined by the U.S. Labor Department.

Q. I work for a large corporation. The words "business needs" and "mandatory overtime" are frequently used. We are expected to work 10 hours of mandatory overtime unless we have a doctor's note or approval for time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act. Our supervisor says that if we refuse to work overtime without an acceptable excuse, then the time we didn't work will be counted against any future FMLA leave. No one in the office remembers being told this until she informed us recently.

ONCE AGAIN, the House has voted to block new Labor Department rules on who qualifies for overtime pay. This time, though, it cannot be an empty gesture. Most of these new rules need to change, and the sooner the better. Nobody argues with the part of the regulations that raises the annual salary under which workers are guaranteed overtime from $8,060 to $23,660. It's the part where businesses can redefine thousands of people into expansive professional categories - thus disqualifying them from guaranteed overtime - that has raised hackles.