Shoddy bookkeeping and pay practices have cost a New York City-based nursing home operator more than $261,000.
An investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division found that three Centers Health Care-owned nursing homes paid employees only for scheduled hours, while work that was performed before or after scheduled shifts went uncompensated.
The agency also found that employers failed to tally weekly hours for employees who worked at different facilities during the same week and didn’t pay overtime for those total hours.
Additional findings stated that the company paid overtime hours at rates lower than what was required by law and failed to record and pay employees for all their worked hours due to erroneous time-rounding practices.
The Rhode-Island based facilities are on the hook for nearly $193,000 in back wages and liquidated damages that will be paid to 89 employees. Almost $69,000 was paid in civil penalties.
Centers Health Care, which owns about 50 nursing facilities around the country, also agreed to comply with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) at all of its locations as part of an enterprise-wide settlement agreement.
A spokesman for the company told McKnight’s he was unable to comment.
From the October 2019 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
