Platte County Supervisors Chairman Bob Lloyd and Joe Tooley, chairman of the Platte County Personnel Committee, voted no Tuesday on a measure to convert salaried employees at the Platte County Courthouse to an hourly payroll and clearly bring the county into compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act.

“The county is not in trouble over the situation, and the payroll should continue as is,” Tooley said. “I would make a motion to continue what we’ve been doing in past with the exception of the sheriff and highway departments and continue looking into this and make any changes in March if we need to.”

Tooley’s motion failed on a vote of 4-3 with supervisors Tom Martens, Hollie Olk, Jerry Micek and Myron Franzen voting against keeping the current payroll system.

Ronald Pfeifer joined Lloyd and Tooley in voting against making any changes.

After much discussion, the proposal to comply with the wage and hour act passed 5-2, with Lloyd and Tooley opposing the changes.

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), passed in 1938, requires non-supervisory personnel to be paid hourly with overtime pay of time and a half for hours worked over 40.

Platte County Attorney Sandra Allen said she had visited the Web site of the Nebraska Association of County Officials (NACO) and discovered a tutorial regarding the wage and hour law that seemed to allow Platte County to continue its current payroll model of salaried employees.

“I don’t know why we’re converting all these employees to hourly with the exception of the highway department and sheriff’s department who are already on it and the election commissioner’s office,” Allen told the supervisors. “All the employees in the courthouse except for those offices work 8 (a.m.)-5 (p.m.).

“According to the tutorial on the NACO Web site, and a conversation I had with Steve Murray from the department of labor, as long as the employee’s salary covers minimum wage and pays overtime, there is no problem with the way the county is doing this.”
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