Dive Brief:
- Employees at Auburn University who changed their earning status from salaried to hourly will be shifted back to their previous classification after a federal court blocked a new overtime eligibility rule for colleges and universities.
- The rule, which would have nearly doubled the earning threshold for hourly employees, is being challenged by a federal lawsuit for which briefs are not required to be filed until after the White House administration has changed over in 2017.
- Alabama is one of 20 states to challenge the rule, which several colleges and universities still plan to implement in anticipation of its potential passage.
Dive Insight:
Because the pay threshold is so specific and the job requirements for many staff members so limited, the overtime rule may have budget impact which varies from campus to campus. But schools will be able to breathe a little easier at the midway point of the academic year, knowing that budgets will not be shattered or significant cuts will have to be made to contend with a new federal mandate.
Now campuses can shift their focus to balancing the new costs associated with adjunct and graduate student labor, which may soon increase by way of unionization activity and collective bargaining demands.