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Salaried Exempt in Florida

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Are salaried managers entitled to overtime under federal law in Florida?

The law covering this issue is the FLSA, or Fair Labor Standards Act. The FLSA requires all employers to pay their workers “time-and-a-half” for overtime, or 1.5 times their regular hourly rate for hours over 40 worked in a given week. Under the law, however, some salaried employees as well as wage-earners are entitled to overtime.

Employers are often caught unawares by this fact. The FLSA, however, has created two categories of salaried workers. One group is entitled to overtime (the salaried non-exempt). Another group (the salaried exempt) is not entitled to receive overtime pay.

The issue is a complex one, but federal law offers a few guidelines for determining which employees are exempt, and therefore not entitled to overtime. Merely labeling someone a “manager” is not sufficient. Job duties and pay are two of the significant guidelines when determining into which category a salaried employee falls.

First, if a salaried employee earns more than $455 per week, he or she is salaried exempt (not entitled to overtime). Any salaried employee earning less than that amount is non-exempt.

Second, job duties will play a major part in determining who is exempt. According to federal law, employers may exempt highly compensated employees, outside sales people, computer employees, administrative employees, professionals with advanced degrees, and executives.

Executives must oversee the work of two or more employees to be counted as exempt. Administrative employees are those who are allowed to exercise independent judgment in important business areas. The purchasing agent who chooses vendors would be exempt. The administrative assistant who phones in the orders would not be. Highly compensated employees are those earning $100,000 a year or more for non-manual labor.

Professionals with advanced knowledge would include emergency room doctors, pharmacists and the like. Creative professionals, such as sculptors and artists, would be salaried-exempt. Computer programmers, system analysts, and software engineers would be exempt.

The issue is complicated by the fact that some states have passed their own overtime laws. In those cases, a salaried worker who would not be entitled to overtime under federal law may be entitled under state law. JH