Breathing a sigh of relief about your exempt employees? Not so fast!

In 2014, President Obama told the US Department of Labor to update the salary threshold for workers who could be counted as overtime-exempt employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). For the various categories, certain job duty tests have to be met, but the new directive was going to amount to an increase in the “salary level test,” or floor, from $23,600 a year to $47,476 a year.

Let’s say you had a manager making $40,000 a year who met all of the job duty tests; under the law, you could treat him/her as exempt from overtime until December 1, 2016, at which time, the law would have required you to stop treating him/her as exempt and begin paying overtime (because his salary was under the new floor of $47,476). However, to the great relief of many employers, a federal judge issued an injunction which blocked implementation of the new increased salary floor. So that manager can remain exempt, right?

Not so fast; don’t forget that other rules and regulatory bodies may have something to say about this. In New York, we must consider entities like our state government. Here, that $40,000 salary is going to be too low to hold up to the State’s definition of a “white collar” exempt employee. (“White collar” employees are those fitting into the administrative and executive FLSA exemptions.)

Are you based in New York City? If you are, then that manager’s salary is already below the floor for “white collar” exempt status. (For NYC employers with 11 or more employees, the floor for that exempt status is now $42,900 per year. For smaller employers, it’s $40,950). Outside NYC, but in other parts of New York, that $40,000 just meets the definition, but will only do so until the end of 2017, since all of the levels are indexed. They’ll go up for NYC and the rest of the state for at least the next few years. (By the end of 2018, for NYC employers with 11 or more employees, the minimum annual salary to qualify for the administrative and executive exempt statuses will be $58,500 a year.)

That’s just New York. Other states (and cities) may have their own regulations. Be sure to check with your own advisors/legal counsel to make certain you’re in compliance. A violation can carry significant penalties!

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This has been prepared for your general information, but this article is not meant to provide or substitute for legal advice, and shouldn’t be acted upon without consulting your own counsel.