The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) recently released an important letter regarding the classification of volunteers for purposes of the Fair Labor Standards Act.  To read the letter in its entirety, CLICK HERE.

For the first time in the public safety context, the DOL provides great detail in defining "how much" would be considered a "nominal payment" made to volunteers. The DOL sets forth a 20% standard, which means that the DOL is likely to consider payments to a person to be "nominal" if the payments are less than 20% of what the organization would pay to a full time employee hired to the perform the same job. This will help provide significant guidance to volunteer organizations that develop their own volunteer incentive programs. It will also help provide a "ceiling" to help such organizations determine maximum amounts that can be provided to volunteers. This letter is one of the more thorough from DOL on the volunteer issue and is "required reading" for any organization that runs a volunteer incentive program or otherwise compensates their volunteers in some manner.

The new DOL letter does not, however, address the long-standing problem with volunteers who happen also to work part-time for their EMS organization. There is really no change here in the antiquated regulation (or the DOL's interpretation) that says you cannot volunteer for your EMS organization when providing the "same type of services" as you provide as an employee. Many small and rural ambulance services have traditionally been volunteer. It is only in recent years that these organizations have had to hire staff to cover predominately the day shifts during the week. This letter does not show any change in the DOL's thinking on this issue. Under the current rules, that volunteer would have to make a choice between working part time as an EMT or giving up his volunteer time with the organization, which often poses problems for small EMS organizations.

Nonetheless, in terms of providing guidance to help structure a legal volunteer incentive program, this opinion letter helps significantly. Many of the examples on page 4 of the letter as to payment amounts "per shift" or "per call" are typical of what we see in volunteer incentive programs today. The fact that the Department of Labor indicates that these payments may qualify as nominal fees is indeed encouraging. A number of the previous opinion letters in which specific payment amounts were discussed are rather old and have not kept up with inflation and economic realities. The examples listed in this letter are certainly more in line with today's realities.

PWW applauds the efforts of the International Association of Fire Chiefs in seeking clarification on this important issue.

PWW works with EMS and other public safety organizations in structuring legally compliant volunteer incentive programs, employee compensation systems and other related issues.  CONTACT US for more information.