Overtime hours will be capped

The payment for the work the employees from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have undertaken to help the many states in the country that have been ransacked by hurricanes will not include ‘overtime’.

According to an article published in The Hill, FEMA management will fall back on federal law caps which limit the hours a federal employee can clock in on overtime. The agency has even considered asking their personnel to repay the excess back.

‘Due to the extended work hours involved in supporting disaster recovery and response efforts for multiple storms, some employees have been affected by the annual maximum earnings limitation,’ read an email from FEMA.

In the article they also mention a document sent to the employees warning them that those who reached the cap may be ordered to work more without further compensation as well as ‘continue to receive their regular base pay regardless of whether they exceed the annual premium pay cap or not.’

This document also mentioned that some employees would need to repay any overpay back sometime next year.

‘A bill will be determined and established for any premium pay amounts over the annual premium pay cap and the employee will be notified and billed in 2018 for that amount.’, stated the document.

According to news media outlets around 500 FEMA employees are at risk of going over the premium, a number which the agency has been monitoring.

FEMA administrator Brock Long told a House Appropriations subcommittee late last month that agency staffers were ‘tapped out’ because ‘FEMA was never designed to be the first or only respondent in a disaster, but we often find ourselves in that situation.’