Executive exemption
Kentucky exempts bona fide executive employee from its minimum wage and overtime requirements. To qualify as a bona fide executive an individual must:
- receive a weekly salary at a rate not less than $455 exclusive of board, lodging, or other facilities;
- have primary duties that include managing the business or a customarily recognized department or subdivision thereof;
- customarily and regularly oversee the work of two or more other employees; and
- have the authority to hire or discharge other employees or whose suggestions and recommendations carry particular weight in the hiring, discharging, advancement, promotion or any other employee status change.
An executive employee can also include an employee who owns at least 20 percent equity interest in the business in which the employee is employed and is actively working in the business’ management. Salary requirements provided above do not apply in this situation. KY Admin Rules 803-1:070.(2).
Administrative exemption
Kentucky exempts bona fide administrative employee from its minimum wage and overtime requirements. To qualify as a bona fide administrative employee an individual must:
- receive a weekly salary of not less than $455;
- have primary duties that include performing non-manual or office type work that is directly related to management or general business operation of the employer or employer’s customers; and
- exercise discretion and independent judgment in matters of significance.
An employee may also qualify as an administrative employee if he or she:
- works in an education establishment;
- receives a weekly salary of not less than $455, exclusive of board, lodging, or other facilities, or receives a salary that is at least equal to the entrance salary for teachers in the educational establishment in which the employee is employed; and
- has primary duties that include the administrative functions in an educational establishment, department, or subdivision thereof that are directly related to the academic instruction or training.
Professional exemption
Kentucky exempts bona fide professional employee from its minimum wage and overtime requirements. To qualify as a bona fide administrative employee an individual must:
- receive a weekly salary of not less than $455, exclusive of board, lodging, and other facilities; and
- have primary duty includes work which:
- requires advanced knowledge in the science field or learning typically acquired by a prolonged course of specialized instruction or
- requiring intervention, imagination, originality, or talent in a recognized field of artistic or creative endeavor.
An employee may also qualify as a professional employee if he or she works as a teacher in an education establishment and has the primary duty of teaching, tutoring, instructing, or lecturing in the activity of imparting knowledge.
Other requirements apply to professional employees in the legal and medical fields, and employees working in a creative capacity.
KY Admin Rules 803-1:070.(4) .
Outside salesman exemption
Kentucky exempts outside salesmen from its minimum wage and overtime requirements. Outside salesmen are employees whose primary duty is making sales or collecting orders for services or for the use of facilities from customers. An outside salesman must also work away from the employer’s place or places of business on a regular and customary basis while performing his or her primary duty. KY Admin Rule 803-1:070.(6).
Computer employee exemption
Computer systems analysts, computer programmers, software engineers, or other similarly skilled workers in the field of computers are eligible for an exemption as professional employees. To qualify for the exemption, a computer employee must:
- receive a weekly salary of not less than $455 or be paid an hourly rate not less than $27.63; and
- who have primary duties consisting of:
- applying system analysis techniques and procedures, including consulting with customers, to determine hardware, software, and systems functional specifications;
- designing, developing, documenting, analyzing, creating, testing, or modifying computer systems or programs based on and related to user or system design specifications;
- designing, documenting, testing, creating, or modifying computer programs related to operating systems; or
- a combination of any of the above duties
Exempt computer employees do not include employees who manufacture or repair computer hardware or related equipment. Also, employees who rely on computers to perform their work but do not perform any of the primary duties listed do not qualify as exempt computer employees. Job titles do not determine applicability of this exemption due to job titles varying widely and quickly changing in the computer industry. Other provisions also apply.
KY Admin Rule 803-1:070.(14) .
Other minimum wage and overtime exemptions
Kentucky also exempts the following employees from its minimum wage and overtime requirements:
- individuals working in agriculture;
- individuals working for the United States;
- individuals working in domestic service in or about a private home. The provisions of this section shall include individuals employed in domestic service in or about the home of an employer where there is more than one (1) domestic servant regularly employed;
- employees of retail stores, service industries, hotels, motels, and restaurant operations whose average annual gross volume of sales made for business done is less than ninety-five thousand dollars ($95,000) for the five (5) preceding years exclusive of excise taxes at the retail level or if the employees are the parents, spouses, children, or other members of the employer’s immediate family;
- individuals working as baby-sitters in an employer’s home;
- individuals employed as companions by a sick, convalescing, or elderly person or by the person’s immediate family, to care for that sick, convalescing, or elderly person and whose principal duties do not include housekeeping;
- individuals engaged in the delivery of newspapers to the consumer;
- individuals subject to the provisions of KY Statutes, Chapters 7, 16, 27A, 30A, and 18A provided that the secretary of the Personnel Cabinet shall have the authority to prescribe by administrative regulation those emergency employees, or others, who shall receive overtime pay rates necessary for the efficient operation of government and the protection of affected employees;
- employees working for an establishment which is an organized nonprofit camp, religious, or nonprofit educational conference center, if it does not operate for more than seven (7) months in any calendar year;
- employees whose function is to provide twenty-four (24) hour residential care on the employer’s premises in a parental role to children who are primarily dependent, neglected, and abused and who are in the care of private, nonprofit child-caring facilities licensed by the Cabinet for Health and Family Services under KRS 199.640 to 199.670; or
- individuals whose function is to provide twenty-four (24) hour residential care in his or her own home as a family caregiver and who is approved to provide family caregiver services to an adult with a disability through a contractual relationship with a community board for mental health or individuals with an intellectual disability established under KY Statutes 210.370 to 210.460, or is certified or licensed by the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to provide adult foster care.
