Overtime Regulations and Procedures

Updated 01/24/07

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• Overtime work is work which is officially ordered in excess of 40 hours in a workweek or in excess of 8 hours a day.
• Secretarial Officers, members of the Senior Executive Service, and employees whose rate of pay is at GS-15/10 are excluded from entitlement to paid overtime and compensatory time off.
• Employees who perform regularly scheduled overtime (scheduled in advance of the workweek in which it is performed) must be compensated for all such overtime work. Alternate Work Schedule (AWS) employees may request compensatory time off in lieu of payment.
• Employees at or below grade GS-10 must be paid for performance of irregular or occasional overtime unless such employees request compensatory time off in lieu of payment. These employees may not be required to take compensatory time off in lieu of pay. 
• Employees in grades GS-11 to GS-15 who perform irregular or occasional overtime are generally compensated in the form of compensatory time off. However, paid overtime is allowed under certain circumstances when it has been authorized in advance by the approving official.
• For employees whose basic pay rate is at or below grade GS-10, step 1(GS-10/01), the overtime hourly rate of pay is 1 1/2 times the employee's rate of basic pay; for employees whose basic rate of pay exceeds the grade GS-10/01, the overtime hourly rate will be paid the greater of:  the hourly rate of basic pay for his or her position or 1 1/2 times the hourly rate for grade GS-10/01.
• Employees may not accumulate compensatory time in excess of 120 hours.
• Neither overtime nor compensatory time off may be authorized when such action would cause an employee's total compensation to exceed the rate for GS-15/10 in any pay period.
• Overtime should normally be authorized in advance by Office Directors, or equivalent or higher level managers. Overtime may be approved retroactively (normally not later than the next work day) where compelling reasons make it impossible or impracticable to obtain approval.
• The immediate supervisor or manager has the authority to approve Premium Pay Requests to work overtime or accrue comp time through webTA.
• Overtime work will be recorded on the T & A report after the work is performed. Overtime work performed after the deadline for submitting T & A reports will be recorded on a corrected T & A.

For additional information contact: Human Resources Operations & Services at 202-482-0652