U.S. Department of Labor Investigations Result in Ohio Home Health Care Providers Paying $194,811 in Overtime Back Wages to 62 Employees

CINCINNATI, OH – Two Cincinnati, Ohio, home healthcare providers – Millenium Nursing Agency LTD and Residential Homecare Services LLC – will pay $194,811 in back wages to 62 employees after investigations by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) found the employers violated the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA) overtime and recordkeeping provisions.                                                        

WHD investigators determined Millenium Nursing Agency LTD and Residential Homecare Services LLC failed to pay employees overtime at time-and-one-half their regular hourly rates when they worked more than 40 hours in a workweek. Millenium failed to count time spent by employees traveling between patients’ homes during their workday as work time. Residential Homecare Services failed to include bonuses paid to employees when calculating their overtime rates. Failing to record travel time as work time also resulted in recordkeeping violations under the FLSA for Millenium.  

“Employers are responsible for ensuring that they pay all employees the wages they have legally earned and for keeping accurate records of the number of hours they work,” said Wage and Hour District Director George Victory, in Columbus, Ohio. “We encourage employers to contact us for guidance, and to use the wide variety of tools we offer to help them fully understand their responsibilities. Violations like those in these cases can be avoided.”

For more information about the FLSA, and other laws enforced by WHD, contact the Division’s toll-free helpline at 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243). Employers who discover overtime or minimum wage violations may self-report and resolve those violations without litigation through the PAID program. Information is also available at https://www.dol.gov/whd, including a search tool to use if you think you may be owed back wages collected by the Division.

WHD’s mission is to promote and achieve compliance with labor standards to protect and enhance the welfare of the nation's workforce. WHD enforces federal minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping, and child labor requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act. WHD also enforces the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act, the Employee Polygraph Protection Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, wage garnishment provisions of the Consumer Credit Protection Act, and a number of employment standards and worker protections as provided in several immigration related statutes. Additionally, WHD administers and enforces the prevailing wage requirements of the Davis-Bacon Act and the Service Contract Act, and other statutes applicable to federal contracts for construction and for the provision of goods and services.