How Does Federal Overtime work? - FederalPay.org

The federal government offers three forms of overtime compensation – Standard Overtime, Compensatory Time, and Travel Compensatory Time.

Standard overtime is earned when an employee works for more than 80 hours in a single 2-week pay period. Overtime is 150% of regular pay. To calculate your hourly overtime rate simple multiple your regular hourly wage by 1.5. For salary employees, divide your yearly salary by 2,087 to get your hourly rate then multiple by 1.5. When working overtime, benefits such as paid leave are not accrued and time-in-service does not grow at a faster rate.

Compensatory time, often referred to as comp time, is when an employee works overtime and instead of receiving increased pay they receive an equal amount of paid leave to use at another time. Some organizations prefer to offer compensatory time instead of overtime pay in order to avoid being over budget. The decision to provide compensatory time is at a supervisor’s discursion but guidance may come from higher up within an organization.

Travel Compensatory Time is when an employee travels for work outside of their normal working hours. Employees may not receive standard overtime for their travel time but they do receive equal amount paid leave to use at another time.

Compensatory time is used the same as annual leave with a few exceptions. Comp time may only be held for one year before it is forfeited but there is no maximum comp time that an employee can have at a given time.

Overtime and compensatory time can only be granted with a supervisor’s approval. In some cases a supervisors may authorize a flexible work schedule which would allow an employee to work more than 8 hours one day and then work fewer another day so that the employee still works 80 hours over the 2-week pay period. This flexible work schedule is similar to compensatory time but it not technically considered overtime.

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