The University of Illinois is one of the state’s largest employers and one that will be affected by new overtime rules announced last week by the U.S. Department of Labor. Under the new rules, many salaried employees will be eligible for overtime pay for any time worked past 40 hours per week, if they make $47,500 or less. That’s nearly double the current threshold.
Jami Painter is an Assistant Vice President for Human Resources across all three U of I campuses. She’s leading a committee in charge of implementing the new overtime rules. Painter says they’re still analyzing which university employees will be affected by the new rules, and how big the impact will be on the university budget.
“So, we don’t have an exact number of how many hours these individuals who will now fall into this category of non-exempt are actually working to know how many hours they may now be eligible for overtime pay, so we’re not at the point yet to be able to estimate that budget impact.”
Painter says says some university employees including instructors, doctors, and lawyers, are not eligible for overtime pay even with the new rules.
Painter made her comments on the talk show “The 21st.” The new overtime rules take effect on December first.