Middlebury Handbook

Middlebury College conforms to all terms of the Fair Labor Standards Act (also known as the Federal Wage and Hour Law), including the payment of minimum wages and overtime pay. These laws establish the criteria for determining which positions are "non-exempt" (eligible to receive overtime pay), and which are "exempt" (not eligible to receive overtime pay). Human Resources is responsible for ensuring compliance with such laws, including the determination of exempt and non-exempt status. Direct questions concerning exempt and non-exempt status of positions to Human Resources.

Executive, administrative, and professional positions that meet specific federal criteria are exempt positions and will be paid a fixed salary based on a standard number of hours worked per pay period. No overtime is paid for hours worked in excess of a standard 40-hour week.

Positions that do not meet the federal exempt criteria are non-exempt positions that receive overtime pay at a rate of one and one-half times the regular hourly rate for all hours worked in excess of 40 hours in one week. The regular hourly rate is defined as total pay, that is base pay for the week plus other pay such as shift differentials, divided by the total number of hours worked in that week. For the purpose of computing overtime compensation, CTO, paid holidays, and paid sick leave reserve are counted as time worked.

Overtime for non-exempt employees: It is the policy of the College to accomplish its work within normal work schedules without unreasonable overtime. Some positions, however, by the nature of their responsibilities and the demands of the academic year, require irregular and heavy work schedules. All employees may be asked to work extra hours as needed. Overtime assignments will be distributed as equitably as practicable to all employees qualified to perform the required work. Employees should not work overtime without prior approval from their supervisor. However, once the work has occurred all overtime will be paid. Failure to receive prior approval will be addressed as a performance issue.

Each biweekly pay period consists of two Monday through Sunday work weeks. Each work week stands alone for the purposes of determining overtime. Averaging over any period beyond the seven day work week is prohibited. The first 40 hours worked, or a combination of worked hours, CTO, SLR, and paid holidays are paid at straight time. Any time worked after the 40th hour is paid as overtime.

Example: Monday, eight hours; Tuesday, eight hours; Thursday, eight hours; Friday, four hours; Saturday, eight hours; Sunday, eight hours for a total of 44 hours. The overtime hours are the last four hours worked on Sunday, not the four hours worked on Friday. Time cards and paper and electronic timesheets must be coded accordingly to ensure proper payment of overtime.

An exception to charging the last hours over 40 as overtime will be made in cases where an employee holds two non-exempt positions, such as a full-time primary job and a second on-call position, and has recorded hours in more than one of the positions. In that case overtime will be charged to the second position for any hours over 40 in a workweek.

Compensatory time: Compensatory time (Comp time) is not permitted. This is the practice of saving or holding extra hours worked to be exchanged for time off or paid at a later time, to avoid payment of overtime. All hours worked must be reported in the period they are worked and will be paid on the standard biweekly pay cycle.