Police And Fire Fighters

While the professional, executive and administrative exemptions discussed above may be applicable to police officers and fire fighters, depending on what work the employee actually performs, police and fire fighters do not earn overtime based on a forty hour week. Generally speaking, police and fire fighters are not entitled to overtime unless and until they work more than 216 hours in a 28 day work period. 29 U.S.C. § 207(k).

The most common violations of the FLSA with respect to police officers concerns working "off the clock". Police officers investigating crimes must often perform duties when they are not at work, and therefore are not being paid. Examples of such off the clock work include telephone calls with witnesses, defense attorneys, prosecutors and other police officers which occur while the officer is not on shift. This is simply the nature of police work. However, it is not uncommon for police officers to work several hours of every pay period "off the clock". If the police officer actually worked over 216 hours in that 28 day pay period, including both on the clock and off the clock work, he/she is entitled to overtime of 1.5 times their regular hourly wage. Recently, the attorneys at Billips & Benjamin LLP settled a collective action for over 600 police officers in the City of Atlanta for $7,500,000 based on this allegation.