Contact: Sid Salter

STARKVILLE, Miss.— Mississippi State University officials are monitoring the impact of a preliminary injunction by a federal judge that appears to halt the implementation of the new U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) federal overtime pay rule which would have doubled the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA’s) salary threshold for exemption from overtime pay.

In a Nov. 22 ruling, U.S. District Judge Amos L. Mazzant, III, of Sherman, Texas, who serves on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, granted an emergency motion for a preliminary injunction to block implementation of the new overtime rule filed by 21 states (including Mississippi) in October seeking to halt the rule.

Those states claimed that the DOL exceeded its authority in raising the overtime threshold too high. The case filed by the states was combined with a similar lawsuit filed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce raising similar objections.

“At this time, it appears that implementation of the new federal overtime pay rule is effectively blocked by the federal judge and that MSU, along with other employers, must now determine the best way to proceed,” said MSU’s Chief Human Resources Officer Judith A. "Judy" Spencer.

Spencer said MSU’s Office of Human Resources Management and the MSU General Counsel’s Office are now reviewing and monitoring the impact of the federal injunction. MSU personnel will be provided with additional information when the review process is complete.

On May 18, the White House announced that the DOL was finalizing a rule to update overtime pay thresholds and exemption classifications as part of a process that President Barack Obama began as a comprehensive review of the FLSA in 2014.

The effective date of the new FLSA rule was Dec. 1, 2016. MSU reviewed those proposed changes for several months and was prepared to implement the changes in keeping with the federal deadline, according to Spencer.

MSU Chief Communications Officer Sid Salter said the university would not have additional comment on the injunction blocking the Dec. 1 implementation of the FLSA rule changes until the university’s legal and human resources review process has been completed and evaluated by the MSU administration.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.