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SOP-ADM-7 Staffing of Overtime Administration Division SOP-ADM-7 Issued: 10/11/2023 SUBJECT: STAFFING OF OVERTIME ________________________________________________________________________________________ PURPOSE AND SCOPE To establish a standard procedure for posting, filling and assigning overtime shifts designated special assignment positions on overtime, in order to meet minimum staffing levels. This procedure will apply to shifts (vacancies) not in conjunction with an employee’s regular shift in the Patrol Division, and shifts of more than 4 hours and not in conjunction with an employee’s regular shift in the Fire Division. The preference for filling patrol shifts of 5 hours or less is to use shift extensions. If shift extensions are not practical then off-duty personnel may be ordered in as needed. The goal of this policy is to consistently fill overtime shifts/assignments when the need arises. It is difficult to account for all possible scenarios and the availability of all eligible personnel at a given time. The Fire and Mandated Overtime Picker, which are part of ScheduleExpress, will be the starting point. The mandatory overtime picker initial order was entered from the former mandated overtime picker and will change as personnel are assigned. It will not be reset over time; only new employees will be added at the top of the list and employees no longer employed will be deleted. The Fire OT picker was entered into ScheduleExpress from the old system, and is reset at each shift rotation. This SOP is designed to give supervisors direction on how to fill schedule vacancies within our organization. It cannot anticipate every possible scenario and it may be necessary to deviate from it based on circumstances. It is understood that the Chief or designee may need to deviate from these guidelines due to unanticipated emergency situations or operational needs of the department. The decision to do so shall be made by the Chief or designee. Rescinds SOP-26 Staffing of Unfilled Mandatory Overtime and SOP F08-05 Fire Overtime Allocation Guideline DEFINITIONS • Planned Overtime: Overtime created with 7 or more days' notice • Unplanned Overtime: Overtime created with fewer than 7 days' notice PROCEDURE I. Fire Overtime A. Posting of Planned Overtime 1. Fire overtime will be posted in 24-hour increments, or the entirety of the absence, whichever is less. 2. Fire overtime will be created in ScheduleExpress. A notification will be sent to all qualified users. 3. Fire overtime should be created when the absence is approved in ScheduleExpress. 4. If a 24-hour shift isn't filled, it will be broken down into 12-hour shifts in the following manner: 0700-1900 hours and 1900-0700 hours. Slight variation in hours is acceptable when filling the vacancy (i.e., one employee can cover 10 hours and the other 14 hours) B. Use of ScheduleExpress for Selections 1. The Fire Overtime picker built into ScheduleExpress shall be used for the selection of fire overtime. 2. The Fire Overtime picker is to include all Fire Overtime (mandated, out of city strike team, single resource assignments, special events, etc.) 3. This is accomplished by listing all overtime that should be counted towards the picker in the Fire, Fire Strike, or OT Not Worked locations in ScheduleExpress. 4. All accumulated hours in the Fire Overtime database will revert to zero at shift rotation. C. Selecting Planned Fire Overtime Slots 1. All shifts will be selected in chronological order with the earliest date being selected first. 2. Captains are eligible to sign up for captain and engineer overtime; however, if any engineers signed up for the engineer opening, the supervisor making the selection will skip over the captains. 3. Engineers are eligible to sign up for engineer and firefighter overtime; however, if any firefighters signed up for the firefighter opening the supervisor making the selection will skip over the engineers. 4. Each month the Admin Sergeant should look at the following month and make selections for shifts that have been posted. In general, all shifts should be posted for a minimum of 6 days to allow all shifts to have the opportunity to see the OT. In the event the Admin Sergeant is not available for this task, it will be assigned to another employee by the Chief or designee. D. Selecting Planned or Unplanned Fire Overtime Slots 1. The member needing shift coverage will notify the on-duty Fire Sergeant. If no Fire Sergeant is on duty, the member will notify the on-duty Patrol Sergeant. The Sergeant will enter the absence into ScheduleExpress and send a notification to all qualified users. 2. If feasible, the shift will be left available in ScheduleExpress for at least 1 hour before picking the shift, but not less than 10 minutes. 3. After waiting the allotted time, the Sergeant will utilize the Fire Overtime Picker to determine the selection 4. If no member has taken the 24-hour shift, the Sergeant will need to split the overtime using the 12-hour shift format and again allow for the 10 minute minimum sign up time. 5. If only a portion of the shift is covered and a member calls within a reasonable amount of time to work the entire 24 hours, the member who was selected for the partial coverage should be canceled. Reasonable time is defined as that amount of time which is fairly necessary, conveniently, to do what requires to be done, as soon as circumstances permit. 6. If a supervisor needs to order a member into work, the supervisor will use the mandated overtime coverage procedures. E. Members Duties and Responsibilities 1. Members should do their best to ensure that the intent of this guideline is executed fairly. 2. Members will only sign up for 24-hour fire overtime shifts on their normally scheduled days off when they are not otherwise on duty. 3. No member will utilize "flex time" to sign up for fire overtime. 4. No member will utilize compensatory time or vacation time to sign up for any fire overtime shift. This includes taking comp time or vacation time for the purposes of leaving work early to work a fire overtime shift. 5. No member will trade fire overtime shifts. 6. Members who are unable to work all of their assigned overtime shift will notify the on- duty Fire or Patrol Sergeant as soon as possible to have the entire shift covered. The member will still be charged for the hours in ScheduleExpress by moving the shift into the Fire overtime not worked location. 7. If an employee is unable to work a portion of their assigned fire overtime shift due to a new assignment by the department, such as training, only that portion of the shift will be covered and the employee can retain the remaining portion if they choose. 8. An employee shall not voluntarily elect to complete planned fire overtime after their scheduled late cover or graveyard patrol shift, if the fire shift to be worked does not have a designated rest period incorporated. Such an exception would be a fire shift incorporating the hours of 1900-0700 after working a daytime patrol shift. This is to help provide for not only a safe and efficient work period, but conform with reasonableness to the hours worked without an approved rest period. II. Patrol and Special Event Overtime A. Scheduled patrol overtime will be created when the absence is approved in ScheduleExpress, allowing officers to sign up for those shifts on a voluntary basis. B. Patrol and special event overtime will be assigned to volunteers on a first come, first serve basis. C. Each month, the Admin supervisor shall look at the following month and fill any needed overtime. D. Sergeants are eligible to fill PSO overtime if no PSO elects to work the assignment voluntarily, before the shift goes to mandatory assignment. In the event that a Sergeant is working PSO overtime and a Sergeant vacancy arises, that Sergeant will be adjusted to the Sergeant vacancy and the PSO vacancy will be filled. III. Assigning Overtime A. For a planned fire vacancy, if an employee volunteers for a portion of a fire shift(minimum of 10 hours), and the remaining continuous portion is as least 10 hours in length, the volunteering employee will be assigned the portion of the shift they signed up for and the remaining portion will be filled by mandate. B. Shifts being assigned to an off-duty employee should be mandated more than two weeks prior to the shift if the vacancy is known. July 4th will not be considered as a mandatory shift if the agency declares it an all-hands day. C. Shift extensions should be assigned at least one week prior to the shift if the vacancy is known. D. After an employee has been assigned (not volunteered for) 8 hours of shift extension in a month, any additional shift extensions for coverage will be credited as a mandatory assignment. E. Notification in ScheduleExpress will be sufficient for shifts more than 7 days in advance. F. Those who are ineligible to be assigned include: 1. IOD/Modified Duty 2. Attending Police/Fire Academy 3. Preapproved Vacation/Comp/Paid Holiday/Shift Trade preceding or following days off 4. Leave of Absence G. Those employees assigned a shift with at least 2 weeks’ notice (14 days) will have no grounds to contest the order. They may, on a voluntary basis, have their shift covered by another eligible employee. If for any reason the other employee is no longer able to cover the shift, it falls back onto the original employee to cover or get covered. If another employee volunteers to work the shift, no employee will receive credit for the mandate. H. Those employees assigned a shift with less than 2 weeks’ notice (14 days), but more than 24 hours’ notice, may appeal to the mandating supervisor and upon confirmation that there would occur a financial loss (airline reservations, tickets to an event, etc.), may not be assigned the overtime shift. I. In general, regarding hardships and childcare, those mandated in with less than 48 hours' notice may appeal to the mandating supervisor based on their circumstances. More than 48 hours' notice is reasonable to address most incidents, including childcare, and may not be dismissed as a hardship. J. No officer will be mandatorily assigned an overtime shift that begins or ends within 8 hours of a scheduled patrol shift. K. Unless unusual circumstances exist, employees will not be assigned mandatory shifts on consecutive days. L. In planned instances when a significant number of shifts would be mandated for a position, the Admin Sergeant may elect to open the shifts up for voluntary mandates. This will be done by emailing out the shifts to the eligible employees. The eligible employees could reply with a shift they would prefer to be mandated for from the list. Shifts will be filled chronologically. If multiple employees volunteer for the same mandated shift, the shift will be mandated to the employee higher on the mandate list. If no employee volunteers, the normal mandate practices will apply. Employees should be given a reasonable time to respond to the email to give as many employees as possible the opportunity to respond, with the understanding that the situation will dictate the amount of time. M. When filling unplanned overtime, after attempting to fill the shift voluntarily, the Sergeant may fill it utilizing a voluntary mandate. The Sergeant may send out a page offering employees to volunteer for the mandate, and would still receive credit for a mandated shift. The Sergeant must open the shift for 10 minutes for people to volunteer. If multiple people volunteer for the shift, the person highest on the mandatory list will receive the shift and be credited for the mandated shift. N. No employee may be credited with a mandated shift unless section L is followed or the assigning supervisor attempts to contact all eligible employees on the mandatory list above of the employee assigned. O. If an employee volunteers for a shift that would otherwise be filled by mandatory assignment during their regular days off, for that set of days off they will be skipped on the mandatory list and only assigned a shift if no other employees are available. If multiple employees have signed up for shifts their order on the mandatory list will remain the same after attempting to fill the shift with other employees. P. Other methods of filling overtime positions may occur based on the needs of the agency. IV. Patrol Sergeant Coverage: Due to the limited number of available employees to cover Sergeant vacancies, the following adjustments to the above guidelines apply to Sergeant shifts only. A. For vacancies of 5 hours or less, overtime will be posted for the actual vacancy. If an employee who is off that day would like to work the shift as an 8 hour shift, they may sign up for the overtime and then have the Admin Sergeant change it to an 8 hour shift. In general, the 8 hour shift will be 1600-2400 for a 1700-2100 vacancy and 2300-0700 for a 0200-0700 vacancy. B. If no employee signs up for the vacancy of 5 hours or less it will be filled using shift extensions. C. Once an employee has been assigned 4 shift extensions in a month, any remaining planned vacancies of 5 hours or less that would be assigned to them as shift extensions will be posted as 8 hour shifts. Additionally, if the 5 hour or less vacancy cannot be filled using shift extension due to other logistical issues, the shift will be posted as an 8 hour shift. Any shifts that are posted in accordance with this section will be filled from the mandatory list if they are not filled voluntarily. If a shift cannot be filled by an available Sergeant, more than 4 shift extensions in a month may occur based on the needs of the agency. D. Sergeant vacancies of more than 5 hours will be posted to match the vacancy and will be filled from the mandatory list if no employee volunteers for the shift. E. In planned instances when a significant number of shifts would be mandated for a position, the scheduling supervisor may elect to open the shifts up for voluntary mandates. This will be done by emailing out the shifts to the eligible employees. The eligible employees could reply with a shift they would prefer to be mandated for from the list. Shifts will be filled chronologically. If multiple employees volunteer for the same mandated shift, the shift will be mandated to the employee higher on the mandate list. If no employee volunteers, the normal mandate practices will apply. Employees should be given a reasonable time to respond to the email to give as many employees as possible the opportunity to respond, with the understanding that the situation will dictate the amount of time. F. When filling unplanned overtime, after paging out the shift and no employee has taken it voluntarily, the Supervisor may fill it utilizing a voluntary mandate. The Supervisor may send out a page offering employees to volunteer for the mandate, and would still receive credit for a mandated shift. The supervisor must open the shift for 10 minutes for people to volunteer. If multiple people volunteer for the shift, the person highest on the mandatory list will receive the shift and be credited for the mandated shift. V. Investigations A. Detectives who are assigned as the on-call detective for the week will not sign up for overtime shifts that would otherwise be filled by mandatory assignment and will not be subject to mandatory OT assignments. B. In extreme circumstances, it may be necessary to call the on-call detective in to assist with department staffing. In these circumstances, the on-duty supervisor should contact the detective Sergeant to discuss the need. VI. Grant Operations A. Grant funded overtime shift will be created in ScheduleExpress for employees to sign up and be visible department-wide. B. In an effort to maintain a balance in the amount of overtime within the organization, the following will be in effect regarding grant overtime. In any instance where there is a planned vacancy that has to be filled by mandate during Team 1’s days off (Fri-Sun) or Team 2’s days off (Mon-Wed), any grant operations are cancelled for that set of days off for the job classification that had to be mandated (PSO or Sergeant). This will not apply to any employee who has volunteered for an overtime shift that would have been subject to mandatory assignment during that same set of days off.