Opinion ID: 200756
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Career Incentive (Quinn Bill) Pay

Text: 62 The most difficult question concerns whether the career-incentive pay available to police under the Quinn Bill, Mass Gen. Laws ch. 41, § 108L, must be included in the officers' FLSA regular rate. Quinn Bill payments are nondiscretionary sums paid to police officers based on accumulated educational credits. See id. The Town relies on Bienkowski v. Northeastern Univ., 285 F.3d 138 (1st Cir. 2002), in which this court concluded that the Portal-to-Portal Act relieves employers of any need to pay FLSA overtime for the time that officers spend receiving education (in that case, EMT training) covered by the Quinn Bill. See id. at 141-42. Because employers are not obligated to pay overtime for Quinn-Bill-eligible education, the Town argues, any compensation the officers receive under the corresponding career incentive provisions of the CBA should not be included in the officers' FLSA regular rate. 63 Though initially appealing, the Town's argument fails. The question in Bienkowski — whether the FLSA requires an employer to pay overtime for hours spent in education off-site — is logically distinct from the question in this case, which is whether the increased pay that the officers receive once that education is completed should be included in their FLSA regular rate. Bienkowski did not address the $850 lump-sum payment that the officers in that case received as career-incentive pay pursuant to their CBA. See 285 F.3d at 140. Similarly, the career-incentive pay in this case is nondiscretionary compensation guaranteed to the officers under their CBA. 26 Accordingly, it must be included in the officers' regular rate because it is part of the remuneration for employment paid to the officers. § 207(e). As the Sixth Circuit held on closely analogous facts: 64 The [CBA] does not provide for increased wages based on the police officers' educational levels. Educational advancement, however, enhances the quality of an employee's job performance.... Therefore, to the extent that the police officer's salaries do not [otherwise] account for their educational background, the bonuses attributable to educational degrees compensate the plaintiffs for their services and cannot be excluded from the regular rate under Section 7(e)(2). 65 Featsent, 70 F.3d at 904-05. Accordingly, the Town is obligated to include the officers' career-incentive pay in the calculation of their FLSA regular rate.