New exempt employee overtime requirements

[ALongWalk]

If I am not mistaken new exempt employee overtime federal regulations will take effect on 12/01/16. Basically, as I understand it, exempt salary employees who earn less than $47,500 will have to be paid overtime for hours worked past 40 per week. If true, this is going to have a big impact on council operations. I might be wrong but I think your average DE earns less than $47,500. I think councils are going to have to look seriously at their methods of operation. I also think that if the DE salary and benefits are more competitive maybe districts will get better quality DE's in the long run and maybe the good ones will be willing to stay longer.

Edited September 29, 2016 by ALongWalk

[Eagle94-A1]

THIS. IS. A . MAJOR. PROBLEM!

 

This new rule not only affects BSA, but many non-profits around the nations. In fact almost all of the non-profits were against this law. Yes most DEs earn under $35,000.

 

But even if the salary was raised to $47,500, there will still remain a variety of reasons for DEs to quit. Some of the things I encountered as a DE were :

 

18+ hour days

being on call 24/7 (yes, I had to deal with issues at 1AM and 3AM)

unrealistic goals in membership, manpower, and money

heavy pressure to meet those goals

long hours on the road

Extreme stress on the family

 

That last one is a biggie. I've seen more folks leave the profession, including me, because of the stress on the family. My wife, who dated and was engaged to me while I was a DE, gave me an ultimatum after 1.5 months of marriage: Her or the job.

[Snow Owl]

Our Council (which is a complete mess) has used the overtime requirement changes as the rational to eliminate several DEs.  Our district now shares a "District Executive" with other districts.  And other professionals have been given other "special" duties: Soccer & Scouting, Hispanic Liaison, & Scout Reach. 

 

Training is now all on line, our registrations are processed by another council, someone tell me again why we need the council?

 

We have a successful unit despite the council not because of.

[meyerc13]

Your unit is the exception then, not the rule.  For every thriving unit, in our District we probably have at least one (if not more) units that are struggling to survive.  It is in all of our best interests for Scouting to grow or at the very least remain level.  Without DEs to recruit new Chartered Orgs, help struggling units with recruiting kids and leaders, raise money to fund our camp properties, etc... without those DEs the slow decline in membership would have been a dive off of a cliff, and eventually there wouldn't be a BSA.

 

In our Council, the word is they don't want to cut any DEs, but how they are going to deal with this they still don't know.  It's either give out a lot of raises, or cut hours substantially.  I know for a fact that our DEs put in insane amounts of hours, especially this time of year with recruiting and popcorn sales both going on simultaneously.  Add to that all of the District Subcommittee meetings they attend, and most of them aren't done with work until well into the evening, despite the fact that they start work early in the morning.

 

Being in IT, I've worked in jobs with a lot of after hours work, but I don't think I consistently worked as many hours week after week as our DEs do.  Despite that, they make far less than I ever did working in IT.  It's really fascinating to me how dedicated they are when many of them never had a background in Scouting prior to taking their position.

 

One last point - for those who wish the BSA would go away, just remember that no matter which non-profit you are talking about, the problem is the same.  So all of the other Scouting organizations are facing this same dillemma right now - do we cut hours or pay more.  If they cut hours, what work isn't going to get done?  If they pay more, where is that money going to come from?  It's a big problem, so keep that in mind as you plan your charitable giving for 2017.

[T2Eagle]

If our organization's success, or even part of that success, is dependent on a making small number of people working 50 hour weeks for wages that are near to the bottom third of wages paid in the U.S. than we need to do something differently.

[David CO]

If our organization's success, or even part of that success, is dependent on a making small number of people working 50 hour weeks for wages that are near to the bottom third of wages paid in the U.S. than we need to do something differently.

 

Fortunately, no part of our units' success is dependent on the DE.