Presidential order excuses federal employees from duty Dec. 26

  • Published
  • By 412th Test Wing Public Affairs
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  President Obama signed an Executive Order excusing federal employees from duty on Dec. 26.

For civilian personnel:

This order falls within the scope of laws regulating the observance of holidays. Dec. 26 will be considered a holiday for purposes of pay and leave documentation. Timecards should be marked by using the code "LH."

For appropriated funds employees:

Part-time employees will receive pay only if they are regularly scheduled to work. Compensatory time off is not authorized for work performed on a holiday for which holiday premium pay is applicable.

The regulations for regular full-time employees differ depending on their scheduled work week.

Employees whose normal tour of duty is Monday to Friday will receive Dec. 26 off as a paid Federal holiday.

Employees who have Dec. 26 as their regularly scheduled day off and whose basic workweek is not Monday through Friday will observe the holiday on the regularly scheduled work day immediately before the holiday.

Full-time employees on compressed work schedules who are not scheduled to work on a holiday receive an "in lieu of" holiday on the preceding workday. Therefore, for those employees whose regularly scheduled non-work day is Dec. 26 the last workday immediately preceding that day will be their "in lieu of" holiday.

Full-time employees on compressed work schedules will receive their regularly scheduled hours for Dec. 26 as a paid Federal holiday.

Eligible employees, who previously scheduled annual leave on Dec. 26 will not be charged leave for that day. However, if an employee has scheduled "use or lose" annual leave for Dec. 26 and is unable to reschedule that leave for use before the end of the leave year on Jan. 10, the leave will be forfeited. When "use or lose" leave is forfeited under these conditions, there is no authority that permits restoration of that leave.

All eligible employees in a leave without pay status before and after the holiday are not entitled to be paid for the holiday. An employee who is scheduled to work non-overtime hours on Dec. 26 is entitled to holiday premium pay.

For military personnel:

Use essential personnel only, as with any other Federal holiday.

For contract employees:

Contract employees should contact their supervisors, and contractor management should contact contracting officers for information on their pay and entitlements for Dec. 26. Executive Orders only pertain to federal employees. The Executive Order does not permit the payment of contract employees for time not worked and, therefore Federal holiday payment is not normally allocable to the contract.

Holidays and other time-off for contract employees is governed by the terms of the contract and is generally a matter handled by the contractor management under the terms of existing corporate employee benefits. Generally, contractor employees working on federal installations will not be authorized access to closed installations. Contractor management must decide how to handle employee reporting and compensation. In some cases, contractor employees may be able to continue government work at other locations. Some older contracts may still contain the Air Force Materiel Command clause 5352.237-9002, Contract Holidays. If a contract was not modified to delete this clause, then the clause still applies to that particular contract.

For non-appropriated fund personnel:

This order falls within the scope of laws regulating the observance of holidays for non-appropriated fund personnel. For purposes of pay and leave documentation, Dec. 26 will be considered a holiday and timecards should be annotated as such. Regular employees whose normal tour of duty is Monday to Friday will receive Dec. 26 off as a paid Federal holiday. Regular employees whose scheduled work week does not include Friday are entitled to observe the holiday with pay on the preceding or following workday as determined by their managers.