Tag Archives: recordkeeping

Today’s FLSA Question: I am the assistant chief for a mid-sized full-time paid fire department. The department is sending two fire officers out-of-state to inspect a new piece of fire apparatus we are purchasing. The apparatus factory is about two hours away by airplane or 6 hours by car. One of the officers wants to leave a day early and ...

Three flight paramedics and one flight nurse have filed an FLSA lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, against their employer, Air Methods Corporation. The suit alleges Air Methods improperly deducts sleep time from employees hours worked in an effort to evade FLSA overtime requirements. While this suit only includes four plaintiffs at this time, attorneys ...

A Virginia emergency medical technician (EMT) has filed a federal lawsuit alleging his employer, Craig County, Virginia failed to pay he and other EMTs properly, in violation of the FLSA. Timothy Mason Kimble, an EMT for the county since 2016, makes two basic allegations on behalf of himself and other “similarly situated” individuals [other EMTs that have yet to join ...

A New York EMT is suing his employer for violations of both the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and New York wage and hour laws. Ronald Tappen, an EMT for the Lindenhurst Fire Department filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York on January 22. Tappen alleges the town failed to pay him ...

Today’s FLSA Question: I am a fire chief. I recently had a lieutenant work past the end of his shift and submit an overtime request without authorization. I denied his request for overtime and reminded him that all non-emergency overtime must be pre-approved in advance. Now, the union has filed a grievance and the lieutenant is saying he may institute ...

Today’s FLSA Question: I am a city HR manager. One of our firefighters is out of work with a long-term illness. Unfortunately, this firefighter has exhausted all of his sick time. In response other firefighters have been working as substitutes for his assigned shifts. In theory, we have no issues with this practice since firefighters frequently substitute for each other’s ...

Today’s FLSA Question: I am the union president for a small municipal fire department. We have only five firefighters on duty at any one time. We negotiated an overtime call-back provision within our labor agreement that allows firefighters to come back if the on-duty crew is out of service (on calls) for an extended length of time. Firefighters receive time ...

The County of Riverside, California, has settled a lawsuit filed by 24 former trainees over unpaid overtime. The 24 claimed the county failed to pay trainees for all hours worked during their 26-week training academy. The lawsuit was initially filed by Matthew Dashiell, a former sheriff’s deputy trainee. Dashiell was a trainee at the sheriff’s department training academy in 2013. ...

The City of Baldwyn, Mississippi has been served with a federal lawsuit filed by five city police officers. The suit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi, alleges the city failed to pay the officers for all hours worked in violation of both the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and Mississippi state laws. ...

The City of Akron, Ohio has ended the practice of providing “off-the-books” paid time off to some police officers and firefighters. For more than 30 years, the city had an unwritten policy that allowed some police officers and firefighters take time off in lieu of receiving overtime pay for attendance at community outreach meetings and fire safety events. The paid ...