Court Opinion

ID: 9623535
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:35:29.24854+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:30.153803
License: Public Domain

WILKINS, Judge
(dissenting):
I respectfully dissent.
In 1985, Ogden City began requiring its police officers to work up to forty-three hours per week as part of their regular employment. The officers could elect the method of compensation for the time worked in excess of forty hours per week. The time was either offset by compensatory time, or paid at the usual rate. Neither the officers nor the city considered this time to be overtime. Rather, both the city and the officers considered these additional three hours, and the elected form of compensation, to be part of the regular work expected of police officers and part of their base income.
Ogden City agreed to provide retirement benefits based on the three additional hours for those who elected regular compensation rather than time off. The city made retirement contributions, including contributions based on this additional time, to the Utah Retirement Systems (URS). The URS received these contributions and credited the appropriate participating members’ accounts, including petitioner’s account.
Seven years later, in 1992, the URS objected to the inclusion of the additional retirement contributions in members’ accounts. *1118URS took the position that any time in excess of forty hours per week is “overtime,” which is expressly excluded from the definition of “compensation” under section 49-4-103(l)(e) of the Public Safety Retirement Act (PSRA), codified at Utah Code Ann. §§ 49-4-101 to -704 (1994 & Supp.1996). If the extra hours are overtime, rather than hours for which “compensation” is paid, they cannot be included in the calculation of benefits payable to petitioner.
The determination of whether or not the hours in excess of forty hours per week are to be treated as overtime is a question of statutory construction and interpretation. See Allred v. Utah State Retirement Bd., 914 P.2d 1172, 1174 (Utah App.1996) (construing provisions of another state retirement act). As noted in the main opinion, the statute in question contains no express or implied statutory grant of discretion to the agency. Therefore, we review the Board’s interpretation for correctness, granting no particular deference to the Board’s decision. Id.
Our task is not so much to determine the general meaning of “overtime” for purposes of the PSRA, as it is to determine whether or not these particular hours are overtime hours. Such a determination will certainly help define “overtime” as a term, but need not be an all-inclusive definition.
Overtime is not defined in the PSRA. The PSRA does, however, specifically exclude overtime from the definition of “compensation.” See Utah Code Ann. § 49-4-103(1)(e) (Supp.1996). “Compensation,” upon which benefits are calculated, is defined as “the total amount of payments which are ... in-cludable in gross income made by an employer to an employee ... for services rendered to the employer as base income.” Id. § 49-4-103(1)(a).
The Utah State Retirement Act mandates that Title 49, which includes the .PSRA, “shall be liberally construed to provide maximum benefits and protections.” Id. § 49-1-102(2) (1994). Therefore, the plain language of the act requires that maximum benefits and protections be construed in favor of the system’s beneficiaries. See Sullivan v. Scoular Grain Co., 853 P.2d 877, 880 (Utah 1993) (“ ‘The primary rule of statutory interpretation is to give effect to the intent of the legislature in light of the purpose the statute was meant to achieve.’ ” (quoting Reeves v. Gentile, 813 P.2d 111, 115 (Utah 1991))). Petitioner is among those beneficiaries.
I agree with my colleagues’ interpretation in the main opinion that “full-time” is intended to describe the amount of time considered “normal or standard” for working during a given time period, such as a week. Normal and standard in the case of an Ogden City police officer is forty to forty-three hours per work week. Overtime is, therefore, anything in excess of their standard forty-three-hour work week.
Furthermore, overtime is commonly treated by reputable employers as time for which a premium wage is paid. In fact, various state and federal statutes through the years have so required. See, e.g., 29 U.S.C. § 207 (1994) (requiring payment for employment in excess of forty hours per week “at a rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate”); Ariz.Rev.Stat.Ann. § 23-391 (1995) (same); Utah Code Ann. § 34r-30-8 (1994) (same). In this case, both petitioner and the city treated the three hours in excess of the commonly used “standard” forty-hour work week as regular time, requiring either compensation in the form of time off, or payment at the regular hourly rate. Thus, the common usage of the term “overtime” does not describe the work hours in question here.
The other possible interpretation of these hours rests on the PSRA’s definition of “full-time service” under Utah Code Ann. § 49-4-103(3) (Supp.1996). My colleagues, in the main opinion, rely on this interpretation to assist them in defining what overtime means in this circumstance. While such reliance is reasonable, I simply do not agree with the conclusions reached.
The PSRA is an act which prescribes the minimum eligibility requirements for public safety employees to qualify for retirements benefits. The PSRA provides that “[a]ll employees who perform covered public safety services for any employing unit ... shall become members of the retirement system [as prescribed by subsections (1) through (4) ].” Id. § 49-44203 (1994) (emphasis add*1119ed). “Public safety service” is therefore the threshold to qualify for benefits offered under the PSRA. The PSRA provides a number of definitions for use in its interpretation and implementation. See id. § 49-4-103 (Supp.1996). “Public safety service” is defined as “full-time paid service” rendered by specified public safety employees. Id. § 49-4-103(6)(a) (emphasis added). “Full-time service” “means 2,080 hours a year.” Id. § 49-4-103(3). The term “full-time service,” however, is not used or discussed anywhere else in the PSRA.
The significance of “full-time service” is found only in its use to define other terms within the act. These terms, taken together, establish the eligibility requirements of the PSRA: 2,080 hours characterizes full-time service, full-time service in part defines public safety service, and public safety service is the statutory threshold for inclusion in the state retirement system. The statutory employment requirements of working “2,080 hours a year,” providing “full-time service,” in “public safety” constitutes the minimum qualifying service required to obtain retirement benefits under the PSRA. The plain meaning of the statutory language is that a person employed in a public safety position who works not less than 2,080 hours per year is eligible for the benefits provided by the act.
I cannot accept the argument advanced by the Board that 2,080 hours per year constitutes a maximum number of hours that an otherwise qualified public safety employee may apply toward benefits under the PSRA, and that anything beyond that amount constitutes overtime which is excluded. Such an interpretation is unsupported by anything contained in the PSRA. The references to full-time work are only contained in the description of which employees are eligible. See id. § 49^á-103(3), (6)(a). No relationship exists within the statute, or elsewhere in Utah law, linking the 2,080-hour minimum with any limitation on benefits.
In addition, the interpretation urged by the Board is inconsistent with the language of the act and language of similar. acts, in which the legislature commonly requires a minimum number of work hours per time period to qualify for inclusion in the retirement system. See, e.g., Utah Code Ann. §§ 49-2-101 to -802 (1994 & Supp.1996) (Public Employees’ Retirement Act) (requiring “employee” meet the definition of “regular full-time employee” which requires employment of “an average of 20 hours per week or more” to qualify for benefits (emphasis added)).1 Thus, the requirement is one of a minimum threshold, not one of maximum benefits.
I read the PSRA to require an employee to have at least 2,080 hours a year of public safety employment time in order to qualify for inclusion in the retirement system. On the basis of this interpretation, the three hours per week at issue, expected of petitioner by Ogden City as part of his normal employment, is neither “overtime” or excessive time, which is excluded from coverage under the act.
I would reverse and remand the action of the Board.

. See Utah Code Arm. § 49-2-203 (1994) (stating all "employees,” as defined under section 49-2-103, are members of retirement system); id. § 49-2-103(4)(a) (Supp.1996) (defining "employee," in part, as "any regular full-time employee” for calendar or school year); id. § 49-2-103(10)(a) (defining "regular full-time employee" as "an employee whose employment normally requires an average of 20 hours or more per week” (emphasis added)).