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Hundreds of FEMA employees may have to pay back overtime pay over federal caps

With major hurricane damage in Florida, Texas, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and wildfires that have scorched California, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has seen a record year for activity.
Unfortunately for hundreds of FEMA employees, because federal law caps the amount of overtime, or premium pay, that can be paid out, they may have done extra work for free.
The employees have been told by officials that they may have to pay back the excess overtime, or work additional overtime without pay.
U.S. Rep. Val Demings was incredulous about the possibility that FEMA workers who traveled to disaster areas may not get paid for their efforts.
“Many of them, they probably are dealing with their own situations in their own homes, but are going down to the devastated areas to help the communities there,” she said.
Demings has introduced a bill in the U.S. House that would eliminate the caps and keep any FEMA employees from having to pay back overtime that was already paid.
“This is all about fairness, and that’s who we say we are as Americans, right?” Demings asked. “This is about compensating people who are pressed into service when others are not, and about making them whole, so they can make other people whole.”
Along with her concern about the caps reducing readiness for future disasters, Demings also didn’t want employees to be penalized for doing their jobs.
“We should reward them, as opposed to punishing them,” she said.
Federal law does allow employees to apply for a waiver that would allow them to avoid having to pay back already accrued overtime, but FEMA officials have not said how many, if any, waivers they would grant.