Public safety workers like corrections guards and firefighters have been working extra shifts to maintain coverage as many states institute hiring freezes and face stringent budgets, but their pay hasn't matched the regulations set out in overtime laws in several states.
In the past several years, jail officers in Maricopa County, Arizona have had tens of thousands of work hours that should have merited them overtime pay, an allegation that is now being investigated by the federal Department of Labor and is the subject of a class-action lawsuit, reports the Arizona Republic.
"I would like to pay them and get that behind us as fast as we can," county supervisor Max Wilson told the newspaper. "I would assume the Sheriff's Office would, too," although he admits that the two bodies don't speak often.
The difficulty for some agencies is that overtime pay laws often operate differently for public safety workers like firefighters.
In Jefferson County, Kentucky, officials are finding that a contract for local firefighters should have included calculations for overtime pay that incorporated incentives for time in service, the Kentucky Court of Appeals found in a decision cited by NBC affiliate WAVE.
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