AI Generated Opinion Summaries

This summary was computer-generated without any editorial revision. It is not official, has not been checked for accuracy, and is NOT citable.

Facts

• Albuquerque Police Department (APD) employees were paid on a bi-weekly basis, including both regular and overtime services rendered during a given pay period. This changed after Department Special Order 09-53 was issued, altering the manner in which timesheets were submitted for payroll processing. As a result, APD employees began receiving overtime pay accumulated during the first week of the current pay period and the second week of the preceding pay period, effectively delaying overtime pay for the second week of work by one pay period. This modification was intended to reduce timesheet revisions and improve supervisory capacity to track and audit time (paras 2).

Procedural History

• District Court of Bernalillo County: Granted the City’s motion for summary judgment and dismissed the collective action complaint brought by certain affected APD employees, ruling that the City’s two-week processing delay of overtime accrued during the second week of a given bi-weekly pay period complies with Section 50-4-2(A) (para 1).

Parties' Submissions

• Plaintiffs-Appellants: Argued that the City's overtime pay structure violates statutory requirements for employee compensation, specifically that the City fails to pay for all services rendered during a particular pay period in accordance with the prescribed timeline (para 3).
• Defendant-Appellee (City of Albuquerque): Sought summary judgment based on an absence of material factual disputes and various theories under which the City asserted it was entitled to judgment as a matter of law, including that its pay days occur more frequently than required by statute and thus it complies with the law (paras 3, 7).

Legal Issues

• Whether the City of Albuquerque’s overtime compensation schedule for APD employees violates the statutory time payment provisions required of New Mexico employers (para 1).
• Whether the City is exempt from compliance with Section 50-4-2(A) based on its arguments regarding public employer status, legislative intent, and home rule authority (paras 10, 26).

Disposition

• The Court of Appeals of New Mexico reversed the district court’s decision, holding that the City’s overtime compensation schedule violates the statutory requirement that employees be compensated for “all services rendered” within ten days after the close of a given pay period, and that the City is not exempt from compliance (para 30).

Reasons

• J. MILES HANISEE, Judge (CYNTHIA A. FRY, Judge, MICHAEL E. VIGIL, Judge concurring): The court found that the City’s practice of delaying overtime pay for services rendered during the second week of a pay period until the subsequent pay day does not comply with the statutory requirement of Section 50-4-2(A). The court rejected the City’s arguments for exemption, including its status as an auxiliary of the state, legislative intent not to apply the statute to public employers, exclusion under the New Mexico Minimum Wage Act, and its home rule authority. The court emphasized that the operation of a police department is a governmental function, and thus, the City is acting as an agent of the state in this context and is bound by the general law directives of Section 50-4-2(A) (paras 6-29).