The DOL views a county as a single employer so that an employee who works for two different departments of the same county is considered to be working for the same employer. Therefore, all jobs the employee performs for the county must be aggregated for overtime purposes. If both jobs are non-exempt work, see  Employees Working at Two or More Rates. If the two jobs are both exempt work, of course there is no overtime problem. If an exempt employee also performs a second job which is non-exempt, the employee’s primary duty must continue to be exempt work or the employee will lose the exemption for all of the work. The primary duty requirement is discussed in more detail under Exempt Employees, but essentially if the employee’s primary duty continues to be exempt work, the employee may perform some nonexempt work without losing the exemption. The general rule of thumb is that non-exempt work cannot exceed 50 percent of the employee’s time, but it depends on the facts and circumstances of each case. Also, while exempt employees must be paid on a salary basis, the regulations now allow exempt employees to receive additional compensation above the guaranteed minimum salary and it can be based on additional hours worked above the normal workweek.^[1]

There is a limited exception to the requirement that the hours of both jobs be combined for overtime purposes. This occurs when an employee works on an “occasional or sporadic” basis in a different job for the county.