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September 29, 2011
Greetings!
Stay connected with the legal and financial issues affecting Community Action Agencies. CAPLAW's E-News Bulletin is a continuing series of resources and information on current legal and financial topics of interest to CAAs and professionals working with CAAs.
Whether it is the hard-working employee who wants to finish the project or the inefficient employee who goofs-off during work hours so she has to stay late to get the job done – under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), your CAA is liable for paying overtime wages if a non-exempt employee ends up working over 40 hours a week. It does not matter if your CAA has a policy prohibiting unauthorized overtime, you must pay the non-exempt employee time and a half for any overtime hours. However, there is a bright side to this dilemma! The recent article, Overtime Blues by the labor employment law firm, Fisher & Phillips proposes some methods and procedures for successfully dealing with these and other types of unauthorized overtime scenarios.
Setting Executive Compensation
Executive directors at CAAs often work hard, long hours and are the heart and soul of the organization. Many boards of directors recognize and applaud the passionate efforts of their executive director and want to reward him or her financially but are not sure how they can do so and maintain legal compliance. It is extremely important that nonprofit boards follow certain procedures, such as gathering comparability data, when setting executive compensation to avoid running afoul of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) and placing their organizations in jeopardy. For information about the IRC which may be implicated when setting executive compensation and the tools and procedures boards should use to maintain compliance with these laws, we recommend the article, Executive Compensation Policies, from the National Council of Nonprofits and the Q&A, Chief Executive Compensation: How Should Your Board Determine Compensation?, from BoardSource. Additionally, the website, Charity Navigator, offers nonprofits the 2010 CEO Compensation Study which may be used by CAAs as they gather comparability data to support their executive compensation proposals.
Are Employers Required to Provide Temporary Employees with Retirement Benefits?
As lawyers like to say, "it depends." The answer to this question is a tough one that many CAAs may be struggling with as federal and state shutdowns and budget crises continue to loom on the horizon. Often a CAA will employ temporary staff to assist where funding is limited or the extension of such funding is uncertain. What CAA management may not realize is that if they are not careful, some of these temporary employees may qualify for the CAA’s retirement benefits. McGladrey, an international Assurance, Tax and Consulting firm, offers an answer to this question along with ways to address this potential predicament in their White Paper, Temporary Staffing Agencies and Your Benefit Plans – Do You Know the Impact?
UPDATE on How to Properly Handle an Employee’s Negative Social Media Comments
Talk around the office water cooler seems to now be replaced with Twitter posts and Facebook status updates. Handling these posts and updates when employees paint a negative and sometimes untrue picture of their employers is a thorny and often difficult task. The law firm, Venable LLP recently published an article titled New Guidance for Nonprofits Regarding Social Media Policies and Punishment explaining a report issued by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) about identifying problematic social media policies and methods. The Venable article also describes ways employers may safely manage negative comments employees post on social media sites and also provides an update to a previously published Venable article, Nonprofits Beware: Your Employees’ Blogs, Facebook Posts and Twitter Tweets May Be Protected by the National Labor Relations Act (a reprint of which CAPLAW included in its Fall 2011 CAPLAW Update newsletter now available on CAPLAW’s homepage.)
Another Online Resource to Add to Your Legal Library
Struggling with a legal question regarding employment matters, fundraising, governance, intellectual property, lobbying or nonprofit taxes? Or do you just want to brush up on your basic understanding of these and other legal topics affecting your CAA? We recommend spending some time with the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation website The LawForChange which offers state-specific legal resources for people and organizations dedicated to improving lives and bringing about positive social change. The website offers a broad menu of legal information prepared by leading law firms and lawyers specifically tailored to the needs of social entrepreneurs and innovators, social enterprises, charities, community organizations and many other types of nonprofit entitles.
About CAPLAW
CAPLAW is dedicated to providing the legal and financial resources necessary to sustain and strengthen the national Community Action Agency network. Through its in-house legal staff and a network of private attorneys, CAPLAW provides legal consultation, training, and publications on a wide variety of legal and management topics, enabling CAAs to operate legally sound organizations, thereby enhancing CAAs' ability to provide the nation's poor with opportunities to improve their quality of life and achieve their full potential.
This e-News Bulletin is part of the National T/TA Strategy for Promoting Exemplary Practices and Risk Mitigation for the CSBG program and is presented by Community Action Program Legal Services, Inc. (CAPLAW) in the performance of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration of Children and Families, Office of Community Services Cooperative Agreement Numbers 90ET0429, 90ET0432. Any opinion, findings, and conclusions, or recommendations expressed by this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration of Children and Families.
