** SPECIAL SESSION ** WCHRA: BECHTELL, SANTO & SEVERN – COLORADO WAGE‐AND HOUR OVERHAULS EFFECTIVE 1/1/20
Wednesday, December 11, 2019
3:30 PM – 4:45 PM
Bookcliff Country Club
A few days ago, the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment issued a proposed rule that overhauls Colorado’s wage-and-hour laws that will apply to most employers, although they do not apply to public entities. These proposals, which are scheduled to go into effect on January 1, 2020, make significant and far-reaching changes to most parts of Colorado’s compensation laws and significantly differ from current federal law. Some example of these changes include:
- The proposed rules establish a new minimum salary-basis threshold level for exempt employees that is almost $7,000 higher than the federal Department of Labor’s new salary-basis threshold. Additionally, these levels are scheduled to have near-yearly increases.
- The proposed rules use different duty-basis tests than federal law. This means that while an employee may qualify as exempt (i.e., not entitled to overtime) under federal law, the employee would be required to receive overtime under state law.
- The proposed rules also modify the federal requirements with respect to compensating employees for travel and change the state’s long-standing rules regarding offsets employers can make to an employee’s compensation.
And there are many, many more changes proposed.
