By DAN MINER
Observer-Dispatch
Posted Dec 20, 2008 @
08:46 PM
NEW
The town is
shelling out $71,544 in unpaid overtime to town bookkeeper Carol Fairbrother
for the hours she worked from 2002 to 2007.
“That employee should have been paid and compensated and this should not have
dragged out this long,” Town Board member Robert Payne said. “We’re just making
sure we corrected a wrong.”
The town accepted the settlement with the bookkeeper at a Dec. 10 meeting. It
was signed Tuesday by Fairbrother, who declined to comment for this story.
The amount is less any and all applicable local, state, federal, Social
Security and Medicare withholdings. She also will receive paid leave as
compensation for overtime she has worked from Jan. 1 of this year.
Fairbrother makes $31.32 per hour and gets regular pay 35 hours per week.
The Town Board’s decision is based on an advisory opinion from Syracuse-based
law firm Hancock and Estabrook, LLP. That opinion stated Fairbrother is not
exempt from overtime based on state and federal labor laws and is thus entitled
to overtime pay.
Town Supervisor Earle Reed said the issue dates back to before his
administration, and that when Fairbrother approached him about it, he retained
Hancock and Estabrook.
“She had very meticulous records,” he said. “She did a ton of work on budgets
and things like that.”
The money will come from the town budget, Reed said, because there was about
$125,000 saved in case of such settlements.
As part of the settlement with Fairbrother, Payne said the Town Board has
instituted a new policy under which town employees must have overtime approved
in writing from their immediate managers.
That excludes town employees whose overtime rules are governed by union
contracts.
“Basically, we’re implementing this for Carol’s position and seeing where we
can implement it for other positions,” Payne said.
Fairbrother’s supervisor is Reed, Payne said.
Reed said he’s also taking steps to monitor overtime more carefully. He said he
recently wrote a letter to all town employees to that effect.
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