Obama’s budget proposal is bad news for many firms

If you were hoping the DOL would ease up on its wage-and-hour enforcement activities, you won’t like this news one bit.

President Obama just released proposed budget for 2015. And in that proposal, the president earmarked a staggering $11.8 billion for the DOL to aid in enforcing wage-and-hour-issues, misclassification, whistleblower and worker safety laws.

Granted, Congress isn’t likely to simply give a wholesale approval of the current proposal. But it does give employers a good peek into next year’s enforcement priorities.

$41 million for Wage-and-Hour Division

The Wage-and-Hour Division alone would see a $41 million increase if the proposed budget was approved today.

Among other things, the DOL division is expected to:

• 300 more investigators who would “use risk-based approaches to target the industries and employers most likely to break the law”
• improved efforts to combat misclassification, including adding more funds to state agencies’ enforcement coffers
• $4 million worth of misclassification enforcement personnel, and
• the establishment of a state paid leave fund to assist states that are considering the implementation of paid leave programs.

And all that funding is expected to help more than 300,000 workers retrieve back wages that FLSA issues cost them.

We’ll keep you posted on any changes to this proposal.