By Tim Rowden
St. Louis Post Dispatch
Copyright 2007 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
JEFFERSON COUNTY, Mo. — Several Jefferson County fire districts will roll back the hourly rate they pay their employees rather than risk running afoul of the state’s new minimum-wage law.
Missouri voters in November overwhelmingly approved Proposition B, raising the state minimum wage to $6.50 an hour. The law went into effect Jan. 1 but omitted something that had been in previous minimum-wage laws: a federal provision exempting fire and police agencies from having to pay overtime to employees who work more than 40 hours a week.
Firefighters often work 24-hour shifts, and the change would require them to be paid overtime every time they work more than 40 hours in a week.
The Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations says firefighters and police officers would fall under the overtime provision of the new law, unless they work for a police or fire department that employs fewer than five people in a law-enforcement or firefighting capacity in any given work week.
Matt Mayer, chief of the Arnold-based Rock Community Fire Protection District, says that without a successful lawsuit or legislation to restore the exemption, the change would cost the district about $300,000 a year.
In response, Rock and at least two other Jefferson County fire districts are asking firefighters to approve an hourly pay cut that, when combined with overtime, will result in the same pay they currently receive. Rock’s board approved the change this week.
Mayer, who is also president of the Jefferson County Fire Protection Districts Association, says the change will alter the manner in which firefighters are paid but will not change their total compensation.
“We met with our firefighters and told them the impact this would have, and they agreed to let us roll their hourly rate back so their annual salary isn’t impacted at all,” Mayer said.
Officials in the High Ridge and Dunklin fire protection districts are seeking similar measures.
“It’s just being safe,” said John Lakin, assistant chief of High Ridge. “Apparently a lot of departments are just going to stay the status quo. They won’t make any changes, and hopefully nobody will call them on it. Our biggest hope is they work it out in the Legislature and things go back to the way they were.”