Skip to main content

Reconsideration of Claim for Additional Overtime Compensation

B-200639 Apr 15, 1981
Jump To:
Skip to Highlights

Highlights

A Navy employee requested reconsideration of a denial of his claim for additional overtime compensation. The employee was an assistant fire chief in Vietnam and was scheduled to work 168 hours per 2-week pay period, which qualified him for additional premium pay equal to 25 percent of his salary. The employee was captured by hostile forces and remained captive for over 5 years, during which time the Navy credited him with his salary plus 25 percent premium pay. The employee claimed that he had also been working 8 hours during each of his off-duty shifts, amounting to an additional 56 hours per pay period for which he was being compensated at the time-and-a-half rate at the time of his capture. The employee claimed that credit for an additional 56 hours of overtime compensation per pay period should have been posted to his account during the time of his internment. The Missing Persons Act provides that a Federal employee in a missing status is entitled to have credited to his account, for the period he is in that status, the same pay and allowances to which he was entitled at the beginning of that period. However, the record was unclear as to whether the additional 56 hours of duty involved actual performance of work or whether it was additional standby or on-call time. GAO held that, if the additional duty in excess of 168 hours was regularly scheduled work, it was not compensable in addition to the standby premium pay that the employee had received. Since the additional duty was irregular or standby time, it could not have been the basis for continued overtime pay after the employee was captured. Accordingly, the previous denial of the claim was sustained.

Downloads

GAO Contacts

Office of Public Affairs