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New law limits 'non-covered' employees
to 240 hours of compensatory time

Legislation enacted this year will place a limit on the number of compensatory hours some ITD and other state employees can carry.

Effective June 15 employees who are “non-covered” (ineligible for paid overtime) will not be able to accumulate more than 240 hours of compensatory time, explains Dana Bailey, a program information coordinator for Financial Services. Employees will see the change on their first July paycheck.

Non-covered employees who already carry more than 240 hours of compensatory time will have until July 1, 2009, to reduce their hours by taking time off. Anything over the 240-hour cap after July 1, 2009, will be eliminated. State rules prohibit “cashing out” or paying employees for hours in excess of the cap.

Employees who currently have less than 240 hours can continue to accumulate compensatory time until they reach the maximum. But after June 15, any new hours beyond 240 will not be recognized. It is similar to employees who reach their annual leave maximum – it will not continue to grow after reaching the limit, Bailey explains.

Scenario one: If you have accrued 250 hours of comp time, and in July this year record 90 hours of regular time in a pay period, your comp time balance will remain at 250 hours. It will not increase by 10 hours to 260 hours. If the 250 hours are carried to June 2009, 10 hours will be removed from the balance and no new accumulation can occur.

Scenario two: If a non-covered employee has a balance of 235 hours of compensatory time and works 90 hours in a pay period, all 90 hours should be recorded on the timesheet, even though only five hours will be added to the time balance. Five of the new comp time hours would be lost.

Credited state service hours will continue to accrue on all overtime worked, therefore employees are required to continue coding overtime hours worked onto their time sheet.

Bailey estimates that a dozen “non-covered” ITD employees now carry more than 240 hours of comp time and a few are approaching the new limit.

Employees who have questions about their compensatory leave status should contact their supervisor or business manager. Leave balance reports also will include alerts when employees are reaching the maximum.