CAROLINA BEACH — Hurricane Florence prompted the Town of Carolina Beach to issue mandatory evacuations, but while most of the island was empty, town employees put in hours upon hours of overtime work.
While hourly employees are eligible for overtime pay, generally, salaried employees are exempt from receiving the benefits even if they exceed their normal 40-hour work week. Now, the Town of Carolina Beach Town Council has agreed to dip into its savings account to help pay both salaried and hourly employees overtime wages.
Initially, hourly employees who were sequestered to Town Hall during the storm were paid 19 out of 24 hours each day they worked that the Emergency Operation Center was open. Town Council agreed to compensate these employees the additional five hours to the tune of $32,000.
Overall the total cost of hourly overtime for the payroll date of Sept. 27 was $93,000 according to Director of Human Resources for the Town of Carolina Beach Holly Brooks.
Generally speaking, salaried employees are not eligible for any sort of overtime pay — but there is an option in the town’s policy that permits it, Brooks said.
“There is a caveat in there that says if an exempt employee works a significant amount of time over a normal work week we can do something for them. It should not be an hour for hour, the wage and hour board would frown on that … and FEMA will consider and allow some form of compensatory paid time off to exempt employees in emergency situations,” she said.
In order to move forward with paying the salaried employees that worked during the storm, Brooks needed a decision from council.
Council ultimately decided to move forward with paying exempt employees wages for hours worked over 40, totaling about $33,000 — but not everyone on council agreed.
Councilman Steve Shuttleworth said he was in favor of paying the town staff who went above and beyond – regardless of FEMA compensation.
“We had a lot of exempt employees working incredible hours doing incredible work out in the middle of the storm fixing stuff and making calls … If we get it from FEMA great and if not we owe it to our employees,” Shuttleworth said.
Mayor Pro Tem Tom Bridges, however, was less eager to dip into town funds.
“I am thankful that they [town employees] took care of us but that $65,000 is going to the budget and many of them are worried about our budget, Bridges said.
Councilman JoDan Garza was quick to respond to Bridges objections to paying staff, noting he was perfectly fine with paying $170,000 to change the color of a fence.
“We just spent $170 grand on a fence and we can’t take care of our staff? You would rather take the barbed wire off the fence?” Garza asked.
Ultimately, the council did approve the funding for both hourly and salaried staff.
Michael Praats can be reached at [email protected]
