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Former Clarksburg employee says city owes him for OT, comp time

WEST VIRGINIA RECORD

Thursday, November 21, 2024

Former Clarksburg employee says city owes him for OT, comp time

Federal Court
Clarksburg

City of Clarksburg | Courtesy photo

CLARKSBURG – A former Clarksburg city employee says he wasn’t paid for hundreds of hours of overtime and comp time.

Timothy Secreto filed his complaint last month in federal court against the City of Clarksburg.

According to the complaint, Secreto worked in the city’s Public Works Department from July 1995 to October 2022. When he became a foreman in 2011, the promotion letter said he was non-exempt.


Toriseva | File photo

He says he was paid overtime for some of his hours but not all. He says he received wage increases over the course of his career, and he received administrative or “compensation” time in lieu of receiving overtime wages.

In 2015, the new superintendent of Public Works required employees to use their accumulated vacation time before being allowed to use accrued comp time. Vacation time was paid at the regular hourly rate, and comp time should have been paid at time-and-a-half, according to the complaint.

The complaint also says Secreto’s position required direct manual labor, was always on call, wore a pager or beeper and, during one particular period, worked 52 consecutive days because of snowstorms. He received no extra compensation for those hours, the complaint states.

From 2015 through 2019, Secreto slays he was required to come into work an hour before the start of every shift. But he says he wasn’t paid for that hour. He also says the city denied several requests to use his leave time, including comp time.

He also says the city had a “use it or lose it” policy regarding comp time, so he was not able to roll his accumulated comp time from one year to the next. He also says the city never paid him for his unused comp time when it reduced the number of hours he had accrued.

Secreto was on sick leave from December 2020 until October 2022, which is when he officially retired. At that time, his pay rate was about $36 per hour. He says the city paid other Public Works employees their accumulated comp time, but did not pay him for his. He says he wasn’t paid for unused vacation leave and other leave time as well.

The complaint says federal law requires employers pay non-exempt employees overtime compensation through the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.

“In an attempt to circumvent overtime pay requirements, the defendant treated Secreto as an ‘exempt’ employee,” the complaint states, further explaining Secreto does not meet all of the criteria to be classified as exempt and therefore is a non-exempt employee owed years of overtime. He also didn’t classify as an administrator.

The complaint says the city eliminated more than 750 hours of Secreto’s comp time from 2015 to 2020.

Secreto accuses the city of violating the Fair Labor Standards Act for failure to pay overtime and for failure to pay compensation time.

He seeks all unpaid wages, including lost wages, unpaid comp time and overtime rate of pay in addition to liquidated damages, penalties, court costs, attorney fees, statutory interest and other relief.

Secreto is being represented by Teresa Toriseva and Joshua Miller of Toriseva Law in Wheeling.

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia case number 1:24-cv-97

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