ELKINS, W.Va. — RSCR West Virginia Inc., also known as Community Alternatives West Virginia, is facing an overtime lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) on behalf of its therapeutic consultants and service coordinators. The DOL filed its claim in West Virginia federal court, alleging RSCR failed to pay its employees overtime wages and misclassified the employees as exempt, both of which violate the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The violations are believed to date back to at least January 2012, with at least 55 employees affected by the violations.
The Center and Its Employees
RSCR provides services for intellectually and developmentally disabled individuals in West Virginia. The company has multiple locations throughout West Virginia, with at least one live-in institution. RSCR’s services, which receive state funding, include training, supervising, supporting, and assisting its disabled clients. RSCR uses employee teams to evaluate and coordinate action plans to best deliver its services.
The company’s therapeutic consultants and service coordinators are part of the service teams; they were treated as exempt employees and were paid a set salary. The consultants and coordinators received the same weekly pay, regardless of the number of hours worked, even when that work exceeded 40 hours in a week. According to the DOL’s lawsuit, consultants and coordinators averaged between 45 and 50 hours a week. The precise hours worked are not completely clear, since RSCR allegedly failed to properly record the hours its employees worked on a daily and weekly basis.
Salaries and Overtime
The DOL does not fault RSCR for paying its employees an annual salary. Both exempt and nonexempt employees may legally receive set salaried wages. However, nonexempt salaried employees are still entitled to overtime. In this case, the DOL claims the company should have treated its employees as nonexempt because their responsibilities did not rise to the level necessary for FLSA exempt status. For nonexempt employees, weekly salaries are divided by the total hours worked each week to determine the employee’s regular pay rate. The regular pay rate is then used to calculate the overtime pay rate and applied to the hours of overtime the employees worked that week.
Calculating overtime when you are a salaried employee is complicated, as is determining whether you are properly classified as exempt or nonexempt. An experienced team of overtime pay lawyers can help. Contact us today at (855) 754-2795 or complete the Free Unpaid Overtime Case Review form. If we accept your case, we will represent you under our No Fee Promise. You will not be billed for legal fees or other costs unless you receive a settlement.