Page 236 - Washington Nonprofit Handbook 2018 Edition

The FLSA does not define “executive, administrative, or professional” for
purposes of the exemptions, but the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) has
promulgated administrative regulations defining the scope of those exemptions.
As the DOL acknowledged in a proposal to amend these regulations, the
exemptions have long “engendered considerable confusion . . . regarding who is,
and who is not, exempt.”

A DOL fact sheet lists the tests which must be met to qualify for an employee
exemption. The following summarizes such tests for qualifying an executive
3
employee, administrative employee, learned professional employee, creative
professional employee, and computer employee.

To qualify for the executive employee exemption, all of the following tests
must be met:

• The employee must be compensated on a salary basis (as defined in
the regulations) at a rate not less than $455 per week;

• The employee’s primary duty must be managing the enterprise, or
managing a customarily recognized department or subdivision of the
enterprise;

• The employee must customarily and regularly direct the work of at
least two or more other full-time employees or their equivalent; and

• The employee must have the authority to hire or fire other employees,
or have particular weight given to their suggestions and
recommendations as to the hiring, firing, advancement, promotion or
any other change of status of other employees.

To qualify for the administrative employee exemption, all of the following
tests must be met:

• The employee must be compensated on a salary or fee basis (as
defined in the regulations) at a rate not less than $455 per week;

3 See Dep’t of Labor, Wage & Hour Div., Fact Sheet #17A (rev. July 2008), https://www.dol.gov/whd/
overtime/fs17a_overview.pdf. As noted in the fact sheet, beginning January 2018, the DOL is
undertaking rulemaking to revise the regulations that define the FLSA exemptions, including
possibly increasing the $455-per-week salary threshold.

WASHINGTON NONPROFIT HANDBOOK -225- 2018