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Council upholds city manager's denial of three police overtime pay grievances after lengthy appeal
Summary
The Elko City Council heard a multi-hour appeal from the Elko Police Officers Protective Association alleging specialty-assignment pay was not included in overtime calculations. After testimony from officers, finance staff and labor counsel, the council found the grievances untimely and upheld the city manager's denial.
Mayor Reese Keener called the city council back into session on Nov. 12 to hear an appeal from the Elko Police Officers Protective Association (EPOPA) over three payroll grievances alleging the city improperly calculated specialty-assignment pay on overtime. The grievances concerned alleged violations of the collective bargaining agreement's Article 5 (overtime), Article 35 (specialty assignment pay) and related sections.
Corporal Dean Pinkham, representing the grievance committee, outlined the three claims and the sequence of events that led officers to file. He said detectives who worked patrol or training outside their detective duties had not received the full specialty-assignment percentage in overtime pay and asked the council to require the city to follow the 2022 contract interpretation going forward and to correct pay retroactively. "We respectfully asked these members of city council and Mr. Mayor to require the city to follow the current CBA and correctly pay not only Detective Kellum and Detective Bogdan, but the whole membership," Pinkham said during his presentation.
City management and the finance director countered that the city's FLSA overtime computation already incorporates ad pays and special-assignment percentages into the regular-rate calculation. The city argued the grievances were untimely under the contract's grievance timeline and raised concerns about precedent across multiple bargaining units. Labor counsel Jordan Walsh told the council the grievances were triggered when officers were notified that certain payroll entries were rejected and thus filed within the contract's discovery rules.
Finance staff presented line-by-line FLSA calculations showing that, after including base pay, special-assignment pay and on-call compensation, the overtime premium actually paid was larger than the simple 1.5x base comparison in the grievances. Public commenter Kinsey Bogdan, an accountant who had reviewed city payroll steps, said the union's calculations showed a small underpayment on particular paychecks and that small amounts can compound over time. The discussion repeatedly returned to two issues: the contract's filing timetable and how FLSA premiums are computed.
After extended deliberation and legal guidance on contract interpretation (including plain-meaning and ambiguity tests), Council members split on whether to overturn the city manager's denial. A motion to overturn the denial failed; a subsequent motion to uphold the city manager's denial on the grounds of untimely filing, intent at time of signing and longstanding past practice passed. The council recorded the decision as an appeal ruling; the city manager's denial therefore stands for the three grievances.
The council and participants stressed that the monetary sums at issue were small (examples presented in testimony ranged from a few dollars to a few dozen dollars per incident) but that the underlying contractual ambiguity should be addressed in negotiations. Council members urged both sides to use ongoing negotiations to clarify the language so the calculation method is unambiguous in future contracts.
Next steps: the council's decision resolves this appeal; the parties remain in collective bargaining negotiations and members said they expect contract language clarifications to follow.
