House substitute for House Bill 1090 referencing Overtime for COI and COII’s was recently signed into law. What does this mean to Missouri Corrections Officers? This means you will have control over any overtime worked and have the choice whether to collect it in pay or to use the hours as time off. Potentially this could add up to several million dollars more in cash income for officers each year and stop the forced flexing off of hours. CO’s will still have the right to maintain up to eighty hours of compensatory time on the books and would have to be given fourteen days written notice of any mandatory comp reduction of hours accrued over the eighty hours that is protected by law.
After my discussion with the Office of Administration today, it appears that probably sometime in August we will be signing our new work agreement with the Department of Correction and the Office of Administration. Progress on this agreement was slowed because of the overtime lawsuit as well as the overtime legislation which has now been signed into law. The Department of Corrections did not want to agree to the fourteen day notice regarding comp time reduction as it is in our current agreement. We would not give ground on that issue and now have the issue resolved and in law so we can finish the new agreement with the language included. Until the new agreement is signed we will be under the old agreement. If you have a supervisor tell you that the current agreement is no longer in effect, that is not accurate. The agreement has been extended several times and will remain in effect until the new agreement is signed.