University of Washington Human Resources

The Washington State Minimum Wage Act (WMWA) is the state law governing minimum wage, overtime and certain other aspects of pay for employees who work in Washington State. Outreach and enforcement for the WMWA are administered by the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries (L&I). In 2019 L&I updated the employment rules that determine which workers in Washington are required by law to be paid at least minimum wage, earn overtime pay, and receive paid sick leave and other protections under WMWA. Under the approved changes, the minimum pay a salaried worker must receive to be considered exempt will increase incrementally to 2.5 times the state minimum wage by 2028.

Workers who are not exempt from overtime must receive overtime pay of 1.5 times the employee’s regular pay rate for all hours worked over 40 hours in a seven-day workweek. The UW calls positions that are covered by overtime regulations “FLSA Non-Exempt” or “overtime eligible.” All hourly paid temporary and student workers are, by definition, FLSA Non-Exempt. Only positions that meet certain narrowly defined criteria are exempt from the L&I’s overtime requirements. At the UW, UWHR Compensation is responsible for determining the overtime status for all staff positions.

The FLSA is federal law; the WMWA is state law. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and Washington Minimum Wage Act (WMWA) establish minimum standards that may be exceeded but cannot be waived or reduced. When state laws differ from the federal FLSA, an employer must comply with the standard most generous to employees. At this time the WMWA is more generous to employees than the FLSA, so WMWA is followed.

The recent federal overtime rule change and subsequent litigation are specific to the FLSA salary threshold and have no impact on UW’s compliance with the state’s higher WMWA salary threshold.

Effective January 1, 2026, the minimum actual gross salary a position can be paid and still remain FLSA Exempt will increase to $1,541.70 per week ($80,172 per year or $6,681 per month). As a result, FLSA Exempt professional staff, classified staff, represented civil service exempt staff, and select academic personnel (whose primary duty is not teaching, tutoring, instructing, or lecturing in the activity of imparting knowledge) positions that do not meet the new, higher weekly salary threshold must be changed to FLSA Non-Exempt. This is still particularly true of part-time positions, since the threshold is not prorated by FTE and applies regardless of whether a position is part-time or full-time. For example, an employee with a full-time salary of $120,000 who works 50% (half time) would be FLSA Non-Exempt because their actual, half-time salary would be $60,000, which is less than the new threshold. To be exempt from overtime, employees must also meet one of the “duties tests”(see the “FLSA and WMWA job duty exemption categories and checklists” section here: FLSA and WMWA overtime eligibility and exemption).

The January 1 change mentioned above is one of a series of annual changes in the overtime threshold for employees who work in Washington State. These changes are required by Washington State overtime law that sets salary thresholds at the state level which will increase annually until January 1, 2028, when the state threshold reaches 2.5 times the Washington State minimum wage. From then on, the state threshold will increase annually based on inflation by the same percentage that the Washington State minimum wage does.

The state regulation is expressed in terms of weekly salary, not monthly or annual. At the University of Washington, salaries are expressed in monthly rates, paid on a twice a month payroll schedule. Therefore, the UW applies a monthly version of the state weekly threshold (weekly x 52 / 12). Sometimes in our communications we share the monthly or annualized equivalent of the weekly threshold to help employees relate it to the UW’s pay.

More FLSA and WMWA information is available on the UWHR Compensation website at: FLSA and WMWA overtime eligibility and exemption.

Salaried classified staff, professional staff, represented civil service exempt staff, and select academic personnel (whose primary duty is not teaching, tutoring, instructing, or lecturing in the activity of imparting knowledge) who are currently FLSA Exempt but whose actual pay is less than the state threshold will be moved into FLSA Non-Exempt job codes and must track their time starting Monday, December 29, 2025 for campus employees or Monday, December 22, 2025 for medical center employees.

All FLSA Exempt job profiles have an FLSA Non-Exempt counterpart and conversely, some FLSA Non-Exempt job profiles have an FLSA Exempt counterpart if they meet an FLSA duties test. The FLSA job profile pair is available in Workday when applicable. They can be found by searching for a job profile in Workday and looking within the Additional Data section in the “FLSA Paired Job Profile Value” field.

January 1, 2026 falls on a Thursday, and the UW workweek starts on Monday. To accurately account for overtime in a workweek that includes the effective date of the law, the UW is implementing the change at the beginning of the workweek.

Departmental HR and/or hiring managers should notify their affected employees and their immediate supervisors in the weeks leading up to the change and advise them on the related impacts. UWHR Compensation will also provide email notification to affected employees and their supervisors upon implementation at the end of December.

Per guidance from the U.S. Department of Labor, these revisions do not apply to ASEs because of their educational relationship with the UW.

UWHR Compensation will partner with Employee Workday Help to make the necessary job profile changes centrally. Employees will be moved from their FLSA Exempt job code and job profile to an FLSA Non-Exempt job code and job profile.

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. The circumstances will be different for each individual position. Considerations should include:

• Economic impact on the department.
• Impact on equity with others in the same job profile or performing similar work.
• Impact on employee and team morale.
• Ability to reassign work to limit potential overtime.

If the position is 1.0 FTE, does the position regularly work no more than their weekly schedule hours (40 hours per week)? If so, changing the position from FLSA Exempt to FLSA Non-Exempt will have little to no financial impact. The employee will have to track hours worked and will no longer be eligible for supervisor-approved partial day absences. If the employee does end up working over 40 hours in a week, they will earn overtime at time-and-a-half their regular rate of pay.

A cost analysis may be helpful. Below is a hypothetical example:

A position has a salary of $78,000 per year ($6,500 per month), which is above the 2025 L&I salary threshold salary but below the 2026 L&I salary threshold. This position will become FLSA Non-Exempt and any hours worked over 40 in a workweek will receive overtime at time-and-a-half the regular rate of pay. The department estimates that the employee works an average of 45 hours per week.

Perform the analysis below to determine the potential cost of OT to the department:

Divide the annual salary by 2080 (work hours in a year) to find the hourly rate	$78,000 / 2080 = $37.50/hr
Multiply the hourly rate by 1.5 to find the OT rate	$37.50 x 1.5 = $56.25/hr
Multiply the OT rate by the estimated number of hours exceeding 40 in a workweek to find the estimated weekly cost of OT	$56.25 x 5 = $281.25
Multiply the estimated weekly cost by 52 (weeks in a year) to find the estimated annual cost of OT	$281.25 x 52 = $14,625
The estimated annual cost of OT is $14,625/yr.

No, FLSA Non-Exempt professional staff and UAW Research staff are not eligible for supervisor-approved partial-day absences. Because these employees are now FLSA Non-Exempt and are paid for their time worked, all missed time must be accounted for by appropriate paid time off. If the employee does not have accrued time off, the absence will be unpaid. FLSA Non-Exempt professional staff and UAW Research staff may flex their schedules within a standard Monday to Sunday workweek, subject to the business needs of the departments in which they work. Such schedule flexing does not result in working over 40 hours in a workweek and therefore would not result in overtime.

Employees who perform the following duties are not eligible for overtime, so the salary threshold does not impact them:

• Employees whose primary duty is teaching, tutoring, instructing, or lecturing in the activity of imparting knowledge.
• Employees who spend a considerable amount of their time in extracurricular activities such as coaching athletic teams or acting as moderators or advisors in such areas as drama, speech, debate or journalism are engaged in teaching. Such activities are a recognized part of the schools’ responsibility in contributing to the educational development of the student.
• Employees performing administrative functions directly related to academic instruction or training related to the academic operations and functions in a school. Such academic administrative functions include operations directly in the field of education.

An employee who has multiple positions will have the combined salary for all salaried UW positions calculated to determine whether they meet the overtime threshold. The position(s) included in that calculation must be paid on a salary (not hourly) basis. Please see additional guidance on the UWHR Compensation website: Overtime compensation.

Yes, UWHR Compensation will regularly audit for this scenario and request movement back to FLSA Exempt job codes when an employee increments to a step above the salary threshold. Part of this audit will include a check that the department affirms that the employee’s duties have not substantially changed and that the duties of the position still meet the FLSA duties test.

The state threshold is a weekly amount and is applied per workweek. So even if the employee’s annualized rate is over the threshold, the test is based on weekly-equivalent salary rate in a workweek. The employee would need to be converted to the appropriate FLSA Exemption for the weeks of the year that their actual salary falls below or above the threshold and can be converted back to the previous FLSA Exemption status when those conditions end.

For example, if the plan is for the FTE to be reduced every summer, resulting in an actual salary that is below the salary threshold, the employee will move into an FLSA Non-Exempt job code. While in the FLSA Non-Exempt job code, the employee will need to track all hours worked in Workday time tracking (or in KRONOS, if they are in the medical centers).

Similarly, when the employee’s FTE goes back up, resulting in an actual gross salary that meets the salary threshold, the employee will move back into an FLSA Exempt job code. Once that is completed, the employee can stop tracking all hours worked. Of course, if the duties have significantly changed, a full position review would need to be submitted.

No. A temporary pay or salary increase is by definition not part of the employee’s regular salary, and only salary is counted toward the salary threshold.

The department should follow the normal process for the request, which requires the same department approvals/signoffs as at any other time. Guidance can be found on the UWHR Compensation website or reach out to uwhrcomp@uw.edu (Campus) or medcomp@uw.edu (Med Centers) if you have any questions.

Campus employees will be in Workday time tracking; medical centers employees will have their time tracked through KRONOS. For guidance on specific operational details such as who tracks time and how, and the process for supervisor approval of hours tracking, see the Employee Workday Help time entry webpage, which includes helpful resources. Another route to this information is via the Employee Workday Help’s home page under “Your Time & Absence”. Finally, there are also step-by-step user guides regarding entering and approving time in Workday.

Yes, they need to submit their time in Workday for supervisor approval, even if they are not working over 40 hours in a workweek. This is also true if they are part-time, and their scheduled hours are less than 40 in a workweek. Time tracking is necessary to ensure proper documentation and to ensure employees are properly paid.

Each unit should have a policy or practice requiring that FLSA Non-Exempt employees obtain prior supervisory approval before working overtime. Please talk with your supervisor or departmental HR, or see additional guidance on the UWHR Compensation website: Overtime compensation. See a sample Overtime Authorization Policy Template on the UWHR Compensation website: Overtime eligibility time tracking and policy resources and training.

• Exempt (E) employees are those who are not eligible to earn overtime. (Some exempt populations are eligible for overtime, such as those covered by a labor contract or those with university-approved exceptions.)
• Non-Exempt (NE) employees are those who are eligible to earn overtime.
• Salaried (S) employees have base pay set at a monthly rate. This rate is split over two pay periods per month. Being paid on a salary basis means that an employee is paid the same amount per workweek regardless of the hours the employee actually works.
• Hourly (H) employees have base pay set at an hourly rate. The amount they earn each pay period is directly dependent on the number of hours they work and enter on their time sheets.

Please see guidance on the UWHR Compensation website: Overtime compensation.