The Associated Press
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) - Eighteen police sergeants have filed a lawsuit against the city seeking overtime pay to which they claim they’re entitled.
The U.S. Labor Department enacted new overtime rules Aug. 23 that were initially criticized by first responders such as police and firefighters. The department says revised rules protect first responders’ overtime rights, but there still is some dispute over what the rules mean.
The city of Springfield has said it would await court cases and challenges to the new rules and wouldn’t immediately reclassify employees regarding eligibility for time-and-a-half pay. Police officers and corporals are entitled to overtime pay while sergeants, lieutenants, captains, majors and the chief are not.
Springfield attorney Eric Jensen, who represents the sergeants, filed the lawsuit in Greene County Circuit Court on Thursday.
“The dispute is primarily: Are they more policemen, or are they more administrators?” Jensen said.
The police supervisors “are performing law-enforcement duties,” he added, and “they’re actually out on the street fighting crime.”
The sergeants are seeking double the amount of any back pay they claim they’re entitled to under the Fair Labor Standards Act. In the lawsuit, they ask for back pay since new rules took effect in August and three years’ back pay under old rules. Jensen didn’t have an estimate of how much back pay the sergeants were collectively requesting, but said it wouldn’t be “any financial threat to the city.”
The city’s position now is that police sergeants are exempt from overtime under both old and new overtime regulations, said assistant city attorney Carl Yendes.
“We have reviewed the pay for that position, previously and currently, and we believe that we’re paying that position appropriately,” he said, because sergeants are essentially managers.
Yendes said police sergeants became exempt from overtime in the late 1990s. When that happened, their pay was increased, he said.