6.3 LEAVE

The following days are recognized as City holidays:

New Year's Day Bennington Battle Day Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Presidents' Day Indigenous Peoples’ DayColumbus Day Town Meeting Day Veterans' Day Thanksgiving Day Independence Day Day

a. Floating Holiday/Limited Service Days

A limited service day shall be defined as a day during which all City offices are open and all City services are provided. A Department Head shall insure minimum staffing is available to carry out necessary functions. Employees required to work on a limited service day shall be entitled to another day off, which shall be taken during the fiscal year in which it is earned or it will be forfeited. In addition, the day after Thanksgiving shall be a limited service day.

Actual holiday observance dates are governed by the official City holiday posting that shall be made available in the administrative office of each Department for reference by employees.

Whenever a holiday falls on a Saturday or Sunday, the preceding Friday or following Monday, respectively, shall be the designated holiday.

After his/her first six (6) months of employment, an employee is allowed one (1) floating holiday per fiscal year to be used for personal need. Regular and limited service employees working twenty to thirty-four (20-34) hours in an average work week shall earn a prorated (based on a forty (40) hour work week) amount of floating holiday time. Floating holidays will also be prorated based on the date of hire. An employee shall provide his/her Department Head, or his/her designee, with as much notice as possible when the date for the holiday has been selected, in no case being less than one (1) working days’ notice. The floating holiday must be used during the fiscal year in which it is earned or it will be forfeited. There will be no payout for unused floating holidays upon separation.

b. Working Holidays

On designated holidays, employees shall be excused from all duty not required to maintain essential Departmental services. Only in unusual circumstances and after approval by a Department Head or his/her designee, may an employee (whose job responsibility does not require maintaining essential departmental services) work on a holiday.

A non-union employee assigned to work on a day observed as a holiday may take subsequent time off at a time approved by his/her immediate supervisor. The alternate time off should be taken as an entire day within six (6) months of the holiday worked with the approval of an employee's supervisor. If not taken within this time period, it shall be forfeited. c. Holiday Exceptions

If an employee works thirty-two (32) hours a week, (e.g. 4 days a week, 8 hours a day) and a holiday falls on one of those workdays, the employee will be paid for his/her eight (8) hours. However, if the holiday falls on the day the employee is not regularly scheduled to work, the employee will receive no pay for that holiday. Additionally, if an employee works a different number of hours each workday, (e.g. 7 hours on one day and 9 hours on the next), the employee will receive holiday pay equal to the regularly scheduled hours for the particular day on which the holiday falls.

Employees working a flexible schedule, including part-time employees, shall receive holiday pay for those hours that they are scheduled to work on that holiday.