MARIES COUNTY — Maries County Commissioners avoided paying large amounts of overtime after a discussion with Nicole Bexten, 911 supervisor, and Brandon McDougal, detective sergeant, during the July 23 commission meeting.

Bexten was scheduling with a Panama schedule, which averages hours over two weeks for 24/7 operations. However, Vic Stratman, presiding commissioner, said that schedules must be based on the seven-day workweek, not on two weeks, to limit overtime.

This scheduling discussion is as the Maries County Emergency Services Board (MCESB) figures out the logistics of moving the dispatch center to the former American Legion building. Voters approved the board’s creation in November 2025, along with a 1-percent sales tax to fund it. The MCESB currently has a memorandum of agreement with the county to reimburse personnel costs for dispatching services during the transition.

The Fair Labor Standards Act requires that employees be paid 1.5 times their regular rate for all hours over 40 in a week. While that week can be any set seven days, not necessarily aligned with the calendar week, hours cannot be averaged over two or more weeks.

County Clerk Rhonda Rodgers said that when Bexten submitted the schedules, Deputy Clerk Renee Kottwitz noticed that one employee was scheduled to work 72 hours one week and eight hours the next week. To avoid paying 32 hours of overtime, the commissioners met with Bexten to “find common ground,” according to Rodney Southard, eastern district commissioner.

Bexten said that a night-shift dispatcher switched shifts with another employee to take vacation.

“I understand, but you can’t do that,” Stratman said. “We got the sales tax passed, but we still got to be conscientious about how we spend that.”

Prior to July 1, dispatchers were working 42-hour weeks, being paid overtime only after 86 hours per two weeks. This is because the county classified dispatchers, previously under the sheriff’s office, under the FLSA’s 7(k) exemption.

The exemption allows overtime to not apply for law enforcement officers until exceeding 171 hours per 28 days. The law also allows the threshold to be proportionate to an alternate work period in between seven and 28 days, rounded to the nearest whole hour.

However, the 7(k) exemption specifically names dispatching as a non-exempt activity, which must be no more than 20 percent of an employee’s time. Now that 911 dispatching is transitioning to the MCESB, dispatchers operate under a 40-hour workweek.

Bexten also said with only six dispatchers operating the center 24/7, employees are switching in between night and day shifts, which will create burnout.

“It’s difficult. I don’t have a life,” Bexten said.

She ideally wants 12 dispatchers but also said that it would cost more money to hire another full-time employee because of added costs like insurance. But Rodgers and Stratman said that the county is paying the cost anyway with the extra 50 percent on overtime.

Kottwitz suggested keeping a consistent full-time schedule during the week and then hiring dispatchers for the weekends. But Bexten said that the part-time dispatchers that they hire already have full-time jobs.

Southard said that there is room in the finances to hire another dispatcher and is willing to go through that process, which includes MCESB approval.

Bexten also said that at the July 17 MCESB meeting, the board agreed for dispatchers to go back to 12-hour rotations using the Panama schedule, working 84 hours per two weeks. In this rotation, an employee would work Monday, Tuesday, and Friday through Sunday the first week. The next week, the employee would only work Wednesday and Thursday.

But Kottwitz said that the schedule no longer applies to the dispatch center, and Rodgers said that the MCESB isn’t in charge right now.

During the MCESB meeting, President Bonnie Prigge didn’t mention the Panama schedule. However, she did recognize the request for 12-hour shifts and the likelihood of paying a little overtime with either five or six employees, accounting for people being sick.

Even if another dispatcher is hired, Prigge said that the board will likely pay overtime for an extra employee to train a new hire. Therefore, she left it to the county’s discretion.