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Dollars and common sense

By |  October 24, 2016 0 Comments

is17671873dollars-budgetThe August 2016 Golfdom cover story discussed updates to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) that will go into effect Dec. 1, 2016, and asked if, as a result of these changes, it’s time to reconsider assistant superintendent salaries. In my opinion, the new regulations will have no real effect on compensation or overtime requirements for many workers in this business.

Under the new regulations, salaried employees making less than $47,476 will be eligible for time-and-a-half overtime pay as long as their position doesn’t meet requirements allowing an employer to classify them as exempt. These changes would, in theory, have a direct impact on the compensation that many assistants and equipment techs receive.

The Department of Labor (DOL) states that changes to FLSA will have several positive benefits for the American workforce. Chief among them are increased compensation for those whose salaries are increased to the $47,476 threshold or who will now be paid overtime; increased work/life balance through a reduction in hours for those who will not receive a raise and will have overtime reduced or eliminated; and increased employment as a result of the need to hire more employees to cover the duties previously handled during overtime hours by salaried workers under the salary threshold.

On paper, this looks great for those of us employed in the golf business. Many people will either get raises or will be required to work less. However, a closer look casts some doubt on this rosy outlook, especially for golf course maintenance workers. It’s common sense: It simply won’t be financially possible for many organizations.

According to GCSAA, the median salary for assistant superintendents is $40,000, and $43,680 for equipment managers. This means that approximately half of assistants and EMs would need raises of at least $7,476 and $3,796, respectively, to meet the exemption threshold, assuming the majority of these employees are salaried.

Furthermore, since the average assistant salary is $41,372 and the average EM salary is $44,962, there are likely substantial numbers of salaried employees who fall between the median and the FLSA exemption threshold. Assuming a fairly typical two salaried assistants and one salaried EM set-up, many operations could experience $15,000 to $20,000 in payroll increases to meet the $47,476 overtime cutoff. That’s an increase many clubs simply can’t handle, especially when you consider we aren’t the only department within the operation that would require payroll increases.

While many organizations in this business can afford the payroll increases resulting from these new regulations, there are at least as many that cannot. Those in the latter group will have to explore the other options outlined in the regulations.

Maintaining a salaried employee’s current wage and eliminating the overtime hours he/she is expected to work is not a realistic option for most operations. The work still needs to be done, and that often means overtime. Attracting and retaining quality employees in this business continues to be a challenge, so the DOL’s assertion that the new regulations will stimulate employment is optimistic bordering on naive.

The only option for many operations will be to find a way to maintain the status quo while also complying with the new regulations. That most likely means that base wages will be reduced to a point where the employee will continue to make the same amount as before the regulations go into effect once their OT is added in. Of course, contingencies will have to be in place in the event that an employee is not able to obtain enough OT to match their previous salary.

These changes and their supposed benefits are great in theory but are not entirely realistic. There’s only so much money in the budget and so much time in a day, and the successful people in this business figure out a way to get the most out of both. This case will be no exception. Nobody goes into turf to get rich anyway, right?

PHOTO: ©istock.com/alexsl

This is posted in Columns

About the Author: Matt Neff

Matt Neff is the assistant golf course superintendent at Wedgewood Golf & Country Club in Powell, OH. He is a graduate of Malone College in Canton, Ohio, and obtained his turfgrass science degree from The Ohio State University. He has been writing for Golfdom since 2013.


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