August 2020 - Parks & Recreation - 31

" Oﬀ the Books "
Timecard System
In the case of Pearson v. Georgia,
2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 14909 (11th
Cir. 5/11/2020), plaintiff Melinda
Pearson was a parks and recreation
supervisor and manager and, therefore, considered an exempt employee under the FLSA. Pearson and
several other employees, however,
had been allowed to earn and use
compensatory time off under an
informal, de facto timecard system
within the parks and recreation department. This " off the books " operation was contrary to the City's
payroll department policy prohibiting compensatory time off for exempt employees. Pearson's use of
" comp time " proved problematic,
causing her to be demoted and ultimately terminated from her job for
violating the City's payroll policies.
In response, Pearson claimed the
City's adverse employment actions
against her constituted sex discrimination in violation of federal civil
rights law.
Pearson started working as a
summer employee for the parks
and recreation department in the
City of Augusta, Georgia, in 1980.
She was promoted several times. In
1992, Pearson became a special activities supervisor. During her time
as a supervisor, she twice complained to the human resources department that, even though she was
a supervisor, she was being forced
to do manual labor in an attempt
to make her " work out of her job. "
Nothing came of her complaints.
In 1996, Pearson was promoted
to operations manager in the parks
and recreation department. Despite the promotion, she continued
to have problems. One of those
problems arose in 1999 from her

attempt to use " comp time, " which
is short for compensatory time, an
alternative to overtime.
Under the comp time system, an
employee who worked more than
40 hours in a pay week could bank
those extra hours for later use as
paid time off. Instead of receiving
overtime pay in cash, the employees could take an equivalent number of paid hours off work later.
The City had a general policy
of not allowing exempt employees
- that is, salaried employees like
Pearson who were exempt from the
FLSA's overtime requirements -
to accrue or use comp time. Only
those who were considered non-exempt employees under the FLSA
were supposed to use comp time.
Despite the City's policy, the
human resources department had
allowed Pearson to accrue and use
comp time. However, in 1999, Pearson's manager denied her request to
use comp time on the grounds that
she was an exempt employee. After
Pearson complained, the human
resources director wrote a letter to
Pearson and her manager, stating
that because she had already accrued comp time that was " in the
payroll system, " there was " no other option other than to compensate
her for her time, " meaning to let
her use it for paid time off.
This letter did not specify if Pearson would be allowed to continue
accruing comp time, although it
did state that " exempt employees
do not accrue compensatory time. "
In a conversation they had at that
time, the department director told
Pearson that, unlike non-exempt
employees, she could no longer
report comp time on her official
timecard.
Both exempt and non-exempt

employees submitted weekly timecards to the City's payroll department. Exempt employees indicated
on their timecards only whether
they had worked a full day or taken some sort of paid time off, like
vacation or sick time. Non-exempt
personnel, also known as hourly
employees, recorded on their timecards the exact number of hours
they had worked and also noted
how many comp time hours they
had accrued that week.
If a non-exempt employee wanted to use comp time, they would
mark the timecard to show that
they were not working and would
write on the timecard the amount
of comp time hours that employee wanted to use that day. The
payroll department tracked comp
time hours accrued by non-exempt
employees, but did not track comp
time for exempt employees who
were not supposed to have any
comp time.

If a non-exempt employee
wanted to use comp time,
they would mark the timecard
to show that they were not
working and would write on
the timecard the amount of
comp time hours that employee
wanted to use that day.
Falsiﬁed Timecards
Despite the City's policy prohibiting comp time, the parks and recreation department had created a
system that, to some extent, had
allowed exempt employees to use
comp time. Under this system, exempt employees would fill out a

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