FLSA Update

Despite several legal challenges, the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA) new Final Rule took effect July 1. It remains a question as to whether the January salary threshold will hold—as the legal challenges remain on-going.

For purposes of the increased July 1 salary threshold, around 23 filled and three vacant positions were impacted. Some of those impacted were converted to hourly employees. A few were given the modest salary increases needed to maintain exempt status.

If the January 1 salary increase survives the legal challenges, that list of impacted staff will be much longer. A reassessment of that list and the anticipated decisions will be completed in the fall when there is more certainty about the implementation.

We will maintain the FLSA Update page as we move toward January 1.

Staff Leave Policies

Thank you to those of you who made time to review the revised Staff Sick Leave and Vacation Policies that were posted on the Policy Development page in June. As shared, those revisions were prompted by anticipated changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act, resulting in more hourly (non-exempt) staff at Drake.

Our goal was to equalize vacation time, especially for those staff who may be reclassified from salaried (exempt) to hourly (non-exempt). We appreciate both the praise and the constructive criticism we received on this change. Ultimately, we believe this is the right change to make at this time—even if rushed a bit due to the anticipated changes to federal regulations.

Effective July 1, this is the new vacation allotment chart for vacation-eligible employees:

Employees Years of Service	Annual Vacation Allotment
0-14 Years	160 hours
15+ Years	200 hours

We also made some updates to the sick leave policy to clarify appropriate use of this leave for routine visits and check-ups—a change that seemed to be welcomed by everyone. We did not have any proposed edits to the Personal Time Policy, so it remains in effect and unchanged. The updated Sick Leave and Vacation policies are posted in the HR section of the Policy Library.

If you are unsure about how or when to request time off, please speak with your manager, as Departments may appropriately adopt (or update) procedures for requesting time off.

Leave allotments for Fiscal Year 2025 will appear in your Employee Dashboard by July 31.

— Maureen De Armond & Debra Wiley, Human Resources