DOL Overtime Rule Update: ANCOR at Listening Session, New Rule Still Expected Early 2019

ANCOR has long been closely following the Department of Labor’s (DOL) overtime rule proposal’s path. As part of this involvement, on Wednesday, October 17, 2018, ANCOR CEO Barbara Merrill and Vice President of Government Relations Esme Grant Grewal attended a DOL listening session on the overtime rule at the U.S. Department of Labor. ANCOR shared information about the wage challenges posed by Medicaid’s funding structures for I/DD providers and referred DOL staff to the delay of enforcement providers received for more details on provider circumstances. ANCOR and its members advocacy played a significant role in obtaining this delay in 2016.  

While officials at last week’s listening session, as is the protocol at these events, did not share updates on the rule, DOL is expected to release a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) in January 2019. The National Law Review has shared the following on what providers might expect:

“Likely an increase in the minimum salary for exemption to something in the low-to-mid $30,000s.  This would be consistent with Secretary Acosta’s comments on the issue, but still considerably lower than the level proposed by the Obama Administration.  It would also be significant lower than some state law minimum salaries for exemption (consider New York’s minimum for exempt executive and administrative employees, which will climb to $58,500 at the end of 2018).

Another thing we could see in a new overtime rule are more modern examples of how the various exemptions might apply in today’s workplaces.  The DOL included a number of new examples in its sweeping revisions to the overtime exemption rules in 2004.  It would make sense to revisit those examples, and to consider additional examples, given how the workplace has evolved in the last 15 years.”