Revamped Overtime Rule Promises Higher Pay and Higher Costs

For Christopher L. Gardner, the looming change in the federal rule governing overtime pay “feels a little bit, like Yogi Berra would say, déjà vu all over again.” Gardner was assistant vice president for finance at Wofford College (SC) in 2016, the last time the U.S. Department of Labor set out to tweak the section of federal law that governs which workers get paid overtime for working more than 40 hours a week and which workers don’t. Now he’s chief financial officer of Wofford, a small private college in Spartanburg, S.C., and the government is changing the rule again. But there’s a critical difference. In 2016, Gardner (no relation to this reporter) and other administrators spent months preparing for the overtime-rule change, bracing themselves for red-tape headaches and budget impacts, only to watch the proposed change fizzle. Now, with the final language of the new rule expected in April, Gardner and many other college leaders may be facing bigger headaches and more substantial budget blows.