VT health care exchange employees forced to work overtime
Vermont is requiring public employees performing duties related to the state's health insurance exchange to work long hours for the rest of the year.
A large amount of paper applications that piled up when the state health care exchange website stopped working means about 100 employees need to work 56-hour weeks through the end of December, local source Vermont Public Radio reported. The work mostly consists of data entry.
Kate Duffy, Vermont's human resource commissioner, said the increased employee attendance is compliant with the Fair Labor Standards Act and the collective bargaining agreement in effect with the employees.
"We wouldn't do this unless we absolutely had to," Duffy told VPR. "But we do."
While the FLSA doesn't set a maximum amount for hours worked in a day or week, employees must be paid at least one-and-one-half times their usual rate when working more than 40 hours in a given seven-day period.
Wages differ among the employees, but the state will be on the hook for about 11,200 hours of total overtime pay due to the health care exchange website's malfunction. The use of employee management software can help companies that need to use large amounts of overtime keep track of payments and limit financial impact.
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