All vacation selections in Court Services Division are to be consistent with the following. The Manual of Policy and Procedures details other pertinent information regarding vacations and their scheduling.
Seniority Determination and Vacation Selection
Department policy provides for the selection of vacations by employees of a given Unit based upon seniority of service in this Department. For personnel who were employees of the Marshal's Department on 12-31-93, this seniority begins with their hire date as an employee of either the Marshal's Department or of the Sheriff's Department, whichever is the earliest date. All other personnel shall use their date of hire as an employee of the Sheriff's Department to establish vacation seniority. For sworn personnel, any service as a civilian employee of either the Sheriff's or Marshal's Department shall be included in establishing seniority.
Employees shall select vacation periods in descending order of seniority, with the most senior having first selection. Initially, each employee shall have the opportunity to select a single vacation period. An employee wishing to "split vacations" shall select one period initially, and a second period after all other employees has had their initial opportunity to select. Employees may select additional vacation periods following the same pattern, with only a single vacation period being selected at a time.
Supervisors shall use a master calendar (similar to the Plan-a-Month calendar) when providing each employee with an opportunity to select a vacation period. This will allow the employee an opportunity to see all of the openings available. Unit Commanders are responsible for notifying personnel who are on sick leave, injury, training, etc.
Scheduling Criteria
Supervisors shall schedule employee vacations on a calendar year basis. Planning, posting of seniority dates, etc., should occur sufficiently early that personnel can make their selections and lists of scheduled vacations can be posted before January 1st of the following year. Specifically, Supervisors should commence vacation scheduling on or about October 1st of each year, with the goal of completing that scheduling by October 15th.
Vacations should be scheduled at the Branch level, involving only the personnel at any given Branch unless otherwise directed by the Unit Commander.
Supervisors shall establish a maximum number of employees who will be allowed off at any given time in order to spread vacations evenly throughout the year. This number can be determined approximately by dividing the number of employees by 12 and rounding off to the nearest whole number. For example, at a Branch having 28 employees, no more than 2 employees may be scheduled off at any given time. In Branches having fewer than 12 employees, Supervisors should schedule no more than one employee off at any given time. Area Lieutenants shall ensure that the above scheduling criteria are met at their respective Branches.
Sworn and civilian personnel should be scheduled separately, except for custody assistants they will be scheduled with the sworn, utilizing the above criteria for both groups. Supervisor vacations should be scheduled as directed by Unit Commanders who shall ensure that appropriate supervisory coverage is maintained.
Personnel transferring into or within the Division waive their vacation seniority until the next annual vacation schedule is prepared. Supervisors may, however, accommodate vacations previously scheduled at other Units if such accommodation will not cause undue disruption of the Branch operations.
Vacation Relief
Unit Commander shall determine appropriate measures for providing vacation relief within their Bureaus. It is the intent of this policy to spread the impact of employee vacations evenly throughout the year while allowing employees to plan and schedule vacations commensurate with their seniority.