Tag Archives: EMT’s

How many consecutive hours should an EMT/paramedic be required to work? That is the question EMS workers from Beaufort County, South Carolina are raising following months of excessive mandatory overtime. According to The Island Packet, Beaufort County EMS workers have a long history of working significant amounts of overtime. In fact, between 2015 and 2020 the county projected overtime costs ...

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has found that the City of Kansas City, MO did not violate the FLSA when it adopted a new pay plan for fire department medics and classified existing Fire Medics as employees engaged in fire protection activities (a.k.a. §207(k) firefighters). The lawsuit was filed in 2017 by two different groups of ...

A Wake County, North Carolina paramedic has filed a federal lawsuit alleging the county’s time tracking system fails to pay paramedics overtime as required by the FLSA. Paramedic Steven Gorrell filed this lawsuit, on behalf of himself and other similarly situated individuals, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina on March 16, 2021. [As a ...

Today’s FLSA Question: I am the fire chief for a small combination fire department. In addition to myself, we employ fifteen full-time employees. Twelve firefighter/medics, two lieutenants, and one captain all assigned to 24-hour shifts (24 hours on, 48 hours off) working a 56-hour average workweek. We use a 14-day work period and pay overtime for all hours worked over ...

How important is establishing a qualifying work period for §207(k) firefighters? Officials from the Village of Highland Hills, a small suburb outside of Cleveland, found out this past week. In a succinct easy to read six-page opinion, U.S. District Court Judge James S. Gwin, found that the village had not established a work period and was therefore unable to claim ...

Montgomery County, Tennessee has reached a settlement with two supervisory paramedics following a 2019 FLSA lawsuit for unpaid overtime. Emergency Medical Services Captain Gary Perry initially filed the lawsuit, on October 28, 2019. Perry’s main allegation related to the county’s failure to pay him and other EMS Captains overtime as required by the FLSA. Perry also claimed the county misclassified ...

A small group of current and former EMS Captains for the City of Virginia Beach’s Emergency Medical Services Department have filed a federal lawsuit alleging the city’s pay practices violate both the FLSA and Virginia state law. According to the medics’ complaint, which was filed earlier this week in federal court, the city improperly classifies EMS Captains as overtime exempt ...

In this Vlog, Curt Varone and I discuss a recent federal court decision that invalidated one Texas fire departments use of the FLSA’s §207(k) partial overtime exemption for firefighter/medics assigned to EMS companies. Here is more on this important ruling. Ruling in FF/Medics’ FLSA Overtime Lawsuit Stresses Importance of FD Policies and Procedures

Does your state participate in daylight savings time? Most likely, you answered yes to this question. Now, in addition to changing the batteries on your smoke and CO detectors, have you considered how daylights savings time may impact a firefighter’s hours worked? Since it is getting to be that time of year again, here is a post from FirefighterOvertime.org dating ...

Today’s FLSA Question: I am a newly appointed fire chief involved in my first contract negotiations with the city’s firefighter union. Understandably, staffing and overtime are hot button topics. The city’s attorney has proposed capping overtime pay at a preset figure on an annual basis. For example, she proposed capping firefighter overtime at $250,000 annually during the term of the ...