Increase in managers' overtime pay proposed

Federal managers would get paid more for overtime work under a new congressional proposal.

A bill sponsored by Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., would raise a 32-year-old cap on supervisors' overtime pay, giving some managers double the hourly rate they currently earn working overtime.

Overtime pay for supervisors is capped at GS-10, Step 1, under a provision Congress passed in 1966. The cap also applies to some administrative and professional positions. Other employees are granted full time-and-a-half under the Fair Labor Standards Act, even if they are classified above GS-10, Step 1. But employees considered supervisory, professional or administrative are exempt from receiving true time-and-a-half for overtime work under the act.

The Federal Employees Overtime Pay Act of 1998, H.R. 3956, which Davis introduced last week, would raise the cap from GS-10, Step 1 to GS-15, Step 1. If the bill were in effect right now, that would mean that a GS-15, Step 1 manager or professional working in Washington, D.C. who currently earns $25.70 an hour during overtime would earn $55.92 an hour.

The bill goes now to the House Government Reform and Oversight Subcommittee on the Civil Service. But observers expect little action on the proposal this congressional session.

Janet M. Garry, a spokeswoman for the National Council of Social Security Management Associations, which represents Social Security Administration supervisors, said the council is working on getting the Office of Personnel Management to include the overtime provision in any civil service reform proposal it submits to Congress.