The FLSA is applicable to all employees of counties, including full and part-time employees, unless they are specifically exempted. Under the FLSA, some workers are considered not covered, and thus are not subject to any of the provisions of the FLSA, and others are covered employees who are exempt from some of the provisions of the FLSA. The payment of a salary in lieu of an hourly wage does not, by itself, remove an employee from the provisions of the FLSA.

The FLSA does not apply to persons who are not “employees.” The determination of whether an employer-employee relationship exists is therefore an important one. The employment relationship requires an “employer” and an “employee,” and the act or condition of employment. Courts have interpreted the term “employ” as defined in the FLSA broadly as “to suffer or permit to work” and have indicated that mere knowledge by an employer of work done for him or her by another is sufficient to create an employment relationship under the FLSA.