January 17, 2019 (WASHINGTON INSIDER ALERT) - Yesterday, the Department of Labor (DOL) submitted its proposed rule on “Defining and Delimiting the Exemptions for Executive, Administrative, Professional, Outside Sales and Computer Employees” to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA).
OIRA, part of the president’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is required to review all draft and final standards as well as all regulatory actions before implementation. This is the final step before the proposed overtime rule is published. While OIRA has 90 days to conduct its review, in most cases review takes 30 to 60 days. If this timetable holds true, DOL will most likely publish a proposed rule sometime in February or March. Once DOL publishes the proposed rule, the public will have the opportunity to review the proposal and submit comments before the agency issues any final rule.
The proposed rule is not public during OMB’s review, so at this time we do not have any specific details on what the proposal contains. However, DOL has stated that it will use the responses it received to its 2017 Request for Information (RFI) on the invalidated Obama administration’s overtime rule, along with feedback received from the public listening sessions the department conducted in the fall of 2018, to develop the proposal.
In the fall of 2017, CUPA-HR, joined by 20 other higher education associations, filed substantive comments in response to the RFI, and representatives from CUPA-HR testified this past fall at one of DOL’s listening sessions.
We'll be sure to keep you updated on all the latest details regarding the proposed overtime rule.