Just about a year ago, President Obama issued a Presidential Memorandum directing the Secretary of Labor to “update and modernize” the current regulations governing when employees are deemed exempt from the overtime pay requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Under that statute, employees who are not exempt from these provisions are entitled to receive 1.5 times their regular rate of pay for hours worked over 40 in a workweek. However, executive, professional, and administrative employees – as well as outside sales and certain computer employees – who are paid on a salary basis and who perform certain duties are exempt from this requirement.

The Department of Labor previously indicated that it intended to publish proposed new regulations for public comment by November 2014. That came and went.  The DOL then stated that it would publish the regulations in February 2015.  That too came and went.

Yesterday, Secretary Perez appeared before a Congressional committee hearing on the DOL’s proposed $13.2 billion budget for 2016. In that hearing, he indicated that the agency was still working on the proposed regulations, and that he hoped that they would be published this spring, but provided no further details whether that means April or May, or even later.