The Council on University Planning and Budget heard an update on the money Eastern has gotten from the state and about changes in the Fair Labor Standards Act regarding overtime at their meeting Friday.

Paul McCann, the interim vice president for business affairs, said about $5 million in additional money was given to Eastern Friday by the state, giving the university about $22 million of the $26 million it was appropriated from a stopgap budget.

He said $24.9 million of that has been vouchered, and the difference between that and the $26.2 million now is the utilities.

The university has been sending the state a voucher, saying it has paid the expenses. The voucher is submitted to the state, which pays it out to the university when they have the money.

“We’re waiting to spend enough on utilities so we can voucher that, so we will be close to having vouchered everything that we can on the $26.2 million we received from the state on June 30,” McCann said.

He said most of what the university did is carry that back into 2016 and use 2016 expenditures to cover that $26.2 million.

“The idea was to give us the most possible flexibility moving forward, so if we used those dollars in ’16 to cover this stopgap budget, then we have additional expenses in ’17 when they appropriate something for ’17 and we’re not having to scramble,” McCann explained.

During the meeting, McCann talked about an update to the Fair Labor Standards Act, which mandates that everybody who makes under $47,000 or $46,000 must be paid overtime.

He said the administration has been working to identify the people affected by this change and what to do about it.

Glassman said this would be the case regardless if they had an exempt contract or not.

Now the administration is identifying those individuals to see who gets to be paid overtime.

Once they figure out how the payroll system is going to be adjusted, they will see if they need to move monthly employees back to a bi-weekly status or create another class of employees who work monthly but get overtime.

Though the law says this is for a 40-hour workweek, the university is basing their decisions off a 37.5-hour workweek.

The class of individuals who do not qualify for this include educators, such as the faculty, Glassman said.

McCann said people such as administrators or executives have special rules, and they are working through the process now to see who needs to be paid differently.

Students have to be paid minimum wage, and not lump sums or stipends, he said, so the university will look at whether stipends or lump sums for these jobs will come to an end.

“We will have to start getting on some of these kids’ hours,” McCann said. “The same could be said for some of the other classifications right now that are not reporting hours.”

To meet the requirements of the law, the university needs to know employees’ hours.

“There will be some increase in reporting during this process,” McCann said.

There will be no reduction in pay, McCann said, as the State Universities Retirement System has rules on it.

If someone is a monthly employee, they will continue to receive their employee benefits even if they roll back to an hourly employee, he said.

The deadline for this change to be implemented is Dec. 1.

“This is a new norm,” McCann said. “We’re going to have some growing pains in all of this. I’m sure we will work through this to get to a point where this will work.”

He said the administration has not made all of the decisions about the update at this time.

McCann said the university is looking at the payroll calendar to make sure it is being done and no one is losing out, especially in December.

“We don’t want them going a full month without getting paid,” McCann said.

Also at the meeting, Kelly Miller, the interim director of admissions, Mark Hudson, the director of housing and dining and Steve Rich, the assistant vice president for university advancement, gave reports on their areas.

Cassie Buchman can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].