Have Yourself a Bureaucratic Christmas (Part 2, Thanks, Obama)

I think this email means we get half a day off on Christmas Eve:

The President has issued an Executive order excusing employees from duty for the last half of the scheduled workday on Christmas Eve, Thursday, December 24, 2015, with pay and without charge to leave, except for those employees who cannot be excused for reasons of national security, defense or essential public need. Employees are excused for one half of their regularly scheduled basic (non-overtime) workday. Employees on a regular and flexible work schedule (i.e., maxiflex) will receive 4 hours of holiday. Employees on a compressed work schedule will receive half of the total number of scheduled basic hours (i.e., if you are on a fixed 10-hour schedule you will receive 5 hours). The holiday time should be coded in Quicktime as 050 - Holiday - Not Worked. 

Employees who are scheduled to take annual leave for the last half of the scheduled workday on Thursday, December 24th, will not be charged leave for that period of time. If an employee has scheduled "use or lose" annual leave for the last half of the scheduled workday on Thursday, December 24th, and is unable to reschedule that leave for use before the end of the leave year (i.e., January 9, 2016), the leave will be forfeited. When "use or lose" leave is forfeited under these conditions, the law (5 U.S.C. 6304(d)) does not permit restoration of the leave. Employees may donate their excess annual leave to an approved leave recipient under the voluntary leave transfer program.  More information on potential leave recipients is located here:  http://www.usgs.gov/humancapital/pb/programrecipient.html

When a holiday falls on a non-workday outside a full-time employee's basic workweek, the employee is entitled to an "in lieu of" holiday. "In lieu of" holidays should be treated as follows:

• If Thursday, December 24th, is a nonworkday that falls outside a full-time employee's basic workweek, the half-day holiday will be observed on the last workday immediately preceding December 24th.
• If Friday, December 25th, is a nonworkday that falls outside a full-time employee's basic workweek, the December 25th holiday will be observed on the last workday immediately preceding December 25th. If that day happens to be Thursday, December 24th, the half-day holiday will be observed on the last workday immediately preceding December 24th.
• If Thursday, December 24th and Friday, December 25th, are both nonworkdays that fall outside a full-time employee's basic workweek, the December 24 half-day holiday will be observed on Tuesday, December 22nd, and the December 25th holiday will be observed on Wednesday, December 23rd.

Part time employees are entitled to a holiday only if they have a regularly scheduled basic (i.e., non-overtime) tour of duty on the actual holiday (i.e., on Thursday, December 24th or Friday, December 25th). Intermittent employees do not have a regularly scheduled tour of duty and may not be paid for holidays not worked.

Holidays fall within the next three pay periods (12/24/15, 12/25/15, 1/1/16, and 1/18/16). Full-time employees on a "5/4-9" flexible work schedule (or other flexible work schedules under which employees work more than 8 hours a day) must make arrangements to work an extra hour (or hours) during other regularly scheduled workdays or take annual leave, credit hours, compensatory time off, or compensatory time off for travel in order to fulfill the 80-hour biweekly work requirement. Quicktime Timekeepers should ensure the T&A for staff properly reflect the holidays as 050 - Holiday - Not Worked. If Timekeepers have questions for pay period 2016-01 (12/13/15-12/26/15), please contact Terrie Wills as soon as possible (by December 23rd).

Additional information is located at: https://www.chcoc.gov/transmittals/TransmittalDetails.aspx

Happy Holidays!