City Council met during a work session to discuss Fair Labor Standards Act Exemptions. Samantha Sonner has more on what the councilor’s discussed.
Councilor’s had a lengthy discussion about all of the exemption options they have when it comes to passing the Minimum Wage Ordinance. But Mayor Pro-Tem Greg Smith says there is still no clear decision, on which set of exemptions the Council will pass.
“You know the Mayor brought forward some amendments and then said he was willing to see them go away,” said Smith. “So, I don’t know if that means they are there to be a place holder for other amendments or how that will work out next Monday on December 1st. It will be interesting to see.”
Executive Director of Café, Sarah Nolan says that with the vote coming up they should stay with the exemptions they included in the September ordinance.
“We have to be really careful about changing it right before implementation,” Nolan said. “And that’s why we want to make sure that the ordinance as it was passed is kept in tact at least through the first year.”
During public comment Sarah Nolan restated the exemptions in the September ordinance, which Mayor Miyagishima said he was unaware of.
“So are you saying that the ordinance that we passed in September that you had in a citizen’s initiative has some exemptions in there?,” Miyagishima said.
“Correct,” Nolan said.
“I was unaware,” Miyagishima said.
Nolan said the included exemptions are in line with what was passed in Albuquerque and Santa Fe.
“Interns that have apprenticeships,” Nolan said. “Non-domestic workers that earn less than $1,700 a year. It’s a really small list of exemptions of people that are exempted. People like managers that are non-exempt anyway, so we just wanted to reaffirm the exemptions that are already implicit in the law.”
Councilor Silva suggested that because of the different options and confusion, they look at the different options side by side.
“We take the four ordinances and have staff lay them out so we can have a comparison of each one,” Silva said. “Of the September 12th ordinance, , the Santa Fe Ordinance the Albuquerque ordinance, and the Bernalillo Ordinance.”
Mayor Pro-Tem Smith says that while this is helpful they need to decide what is best for our community.
“Las Cruces is not Bernalillo, it’s not Santa Fe, it’s not Albuquerque,” Smith said. “We do have to look at this from the standpoint of what works for our community.”
On December 1st, Council will be able to amend the ordinance to remove the FLSA exemptions, add new exemptions, or leave it as is. The work session did not leave a clear indication of what will be included in the final ordinance.
