Maui Behavioral Health Pays $45K in Fines for Labor Violations

Photo by Wendy Osher.

By Maui Now Staff

A behavioral health center on Maui was ordered to pay an estimated $45,000 in back wages, damages and penalties to employees for violating the federal fair labor standards act, according to the Department of Labor.

Aloha House, doing business as Maui Behavioral Health Resources agreed to pay $17,556 to 19 employees who had been paid in violation of overtime provisions, and an additional $17,556 in damages, as well as a $9,900 fine for implementing an overtime policy that was non-compliant with federal overtime standards.

According to information released by the US Department of Labor, the company paid for overtime hours worked by several of its behavior health services employees at time-and-a-half the federal  minimum wage of $7.25, rather than time-and-a-half the employees’ regular hourly rates, as required by the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Overtime pay is due for hours worked beyond forty in a work week, and must be one and one-half times the regular hourly rate of pay a worker receives, according to labor officials. 

“Employers cannot undermine the integrity of the FLSA’s overtime pay requirements by artificially lowering workers’ rates for hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek,” said Terence Trotter, director of the Wage and Hour District Office in Honolulu in a statement.