A 32-year-old cap on overtime pay for federal managers is shortchanging many supervisors, leaving them with less money at the end of the year than their employees.
Supervisors across the country put in extra time on a regular basis, especially at agencies where customer service is a high priority, such as the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service. But a cap on supervisory overtime enacted in 1966 is making managers think twice about putting in extra hours--and making employees think twice about becoming supervisors.
The cap, combined with exemptions from the Fair Labor Standards Act, lowers the overtime pay for managers, who are often GS-12 or above, to the equivalent of time-and-a-half for a GS-10, Step 1 level employee. For example, a Washington, D.C. area GS-12, Step 6 manager who normally makes $26.31 an hour would pull in $25.70 an hour during overtime, while her non-supervisor GS-11, Step 1 employee would make $28.23 an hour.
Rosemary Martelli, a manager in the Social Security Administration's San Jose, Calif., office, says the overtime cap is unfair to the supervisors, because when they work overtime, they're often doing catch-up work with their subordinates.
"They work side-by-side with the claims representatives. They're doing the same things with the same frustrations, the same complexity, but they're getting paid less," Martelli says. "Overall, the morale here is good, but supervisors feel burned by things like the overtime issue."
At Social Security's Fairfax, Va., office, manager Nancy Smolinski says claims representatives see the inequity in overtime pay and decide not to seek promotions.
"My claims representatives make more in a year than the supervisors do," Smolinski says. "There's no incentive any longer to become a supervisor. When I was going through the ranks, it was an honor to become a supervisor."
Linda Shedlock, the assistant division chief of the IRS' Baltimore customer service division, says her supervisors are so dedicated they often do extra work for no pay. The offices Shedlock oversees handle telephone and letter inquiries from taxpayers. Many of her supervisors have volunteered to help out at the "problem-solving days" the IRS has recently held on Saturdays.
"We're very lucky with a lot of our managers in that the overtime issue simply does not come up," Shedlock says. But when overtime work is mandatory, as is often the case during tax filing season, she thinks her supervisors should get paid at a full time-and-a-half rate. "I don't think it's fair at all. Supervisors' after-hours are just as important to them." Federal managers' groups are taking the overtime issue to Capitol Hill. The National Council of Social Security Management Associations has asked its members to lobby their representatives for a change to the law. The Federal Managers Association and the Professional Managers Association have weighed in as well.
Many non-supervisory employees get relief from the cap based on provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act and by several special exemptions granted by Congress, most notably for law enforcement officers. Other exemptions have been proposed; Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., introduced legislation last fall that would exempt National Weather Service forecasters from the cap. Still, many non-supervisors are capped at the GS-10, Step 1 level for overtime as well.
A spokesman for Davis says the congressman has agreed to draft a proposal to raise the overtime cap sometime this year. Davis is working with the managers' associations to come up with a solution.
Janet Garry, Washington representative for the National Council of Social Security Management Associations, argues that federal managers should be paid true time-and-a-half because unlike in the private sector, they do not receive bonuses or other special compensation for extra work.
"In the federal sector, the ability for managers to be appropriately rewarded is limited," Garry says.
An Office of Personnel Management official says the agency is planning to look into the overtime issue, but cautioned that the cost of lifting the cap has to be evaluated.
Social Security's Martelli says supervisors have the most difficult jobs in the federal government.
"The supervisors are the lowest level of management--and they have the hardest job," Martelli says. "Our supervisors are our troopers. By being managers, they go the extra mile."
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