Happy Holidays! We at Weaver & Associates hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving and are looking forward to our upcoming Christmas and Hanukkah season.
One “gift” we all got is a last minute (almost literally) HOLD on the Department of Labor’s new overtime regulations, set to go into effect on December 1. Last week on November 22, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction on the rule as a result of the consolidation of 21 different states’ cases requesting the injunction.
Judge Amos Mazzant of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas said in his ruling, “A preliminary injunction preserves the status quo while the court determines the department’s [DOL] authority to make the final rule as well as the final rule’s validity.”
What this means in the near term is that businesses may HOLD OFF on making planned changes to become compliant with the anticipated ruling. However, if you have already implemented changes, you may wish to keep them in place as we do not know what the final ruling will be. We are told to anticipate an appeal by the Department of Labor to the injunction, which also means we do not know when the final decisions will be made. We think a likely outcome will be a phased approach to raising the new minimum salary to be exempt, making the transition a bit easier, especially for non-profit businesses. More to come on this issue!
While the DOL overtime regulations are on hold for now, the newly released I-9 form is not. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has published a new form that must be used by January 22, 2017. The USCIS has made it clear you are welcome to use the old form until January 22, and the best news is you do not have to ask employees to complete new forms. The original forms employees completed upon hire will be fine. The new form applies to new employees.
Here is a link to the new form: Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification.
Please call us at Weaver to help you decide your best course of action for responding to the overtime rule hold. We can be reached at 208-938-9726 or you may email Patti Perkins, CEO/Owner of Weaver at patti@weaver-solutions.com.