Issue: Flexing your overtime so you do not have to use your personal leave in any given workweek. i.e I was on personal leave for one day in my workweek. In the same workweek on one of the days I worked four additional hours. Can I “flex” the additional hours I worked to cover the hours I was gone on leave so that my leave balance won’t decrease?
Answer: Yes, but it has to be specifically denoted on your time sheet as shown in this example. It is your responsibility to accurately annotate your timesheet when utilizing this option. The State is not going to assume and will not automatically flex your workweek.
Example Situation: An 84-hour Officer has to take his son to the doctor, so he puts in a request to his sergeant and is approved for 4 hours of personal leave on one of his work days, thereby resulting in an 8-hour day. In the same workweek, that same Officer is mandated or chooses to work a 16-hour day. At the end of the week, he has worked a total of 84 hours. The Officer has a low leave balance and would like to flex the four additional hours to cover the time he took to go to the doctor’s office. When this Officer is filling out his timesheet he writes “4” in the Leave Hours column on the day it was actually used and writes in “16” in the Regular Hours column on the day he worked the additional hours. Then, in the comments section he writes the statement “Please flex my workweek”. (See example timesheet) When he receives his pay for the time period he will receive 84 hours of straight time pay and will not be charged any leave hours for the time he was away from the institution.
Benefits: The most common reason for flexing a workweek is when an Officer wants or needs to save leave for personal reasons or when trying to avoid having a leave cap by maintaining a minimum of 400 hours of leave in their bank.
Concerns: By using the option to flex your additional hours you will not be receiving as much compensation for that week as you would have otherwise. In the example above if the Officer had chosen not to flex his workweek, he would have received 84 hours of straight time pay plus the 4 leave hours, but since he did flex his workweek he will only receive 84 hours of straight time pay.
Notes: The reason the State would not pay overtime in the above scenario is per Article 13.2 D of the Contract, which states that only after Officers have physically worked 84 hours in a work period will the State pay overtime for the additional hours worked. So, as in the example above, when the Officer works an extra four hours one day, but misses four hours earlier in the week, no overtime will be paid because he did not physically work 84 hours that work week.
* REMEMBER, you always need approval prior to taking leave or working addition hours during your workweek.