5-833: Time Off to Attend Meetings

Purpose

These instructions are intended to advise supervisors and management of County policy which applies to time off for employees to appear before official County commissions, committees and boards.

Authority

• Sacramento County Executive Officer

Scope

For time off expressly authorized by an agreement between the County and a recognized employee organization, the provisions of the agreement shall determine the conditions under which employees are to be released from duty and compensated.​

Policy

Employees are to be released from duty without loss of compensation under these circumstances:

1. When they have been subpoenaed to appear, during their normal duty hours, before a commission or board or a hearing officer. 
2. When the Civil Service Commission or Board of Supervisors specifically requests the appearance of certain employees.
3. When the employee personally has an appeal scheduled to be heard before the Civil Service Commission.  Appeals involve such things as appeals from rejection of application to apply for a civil service examination, appeals from any other part of an examination process, appeals from a classification allocation decision, and appeals from disciplinary action.
4. The amount of release time shall be that reasonably required for travel to and from, and attendance at, the meeting regarding the matter pertaining to the employee. 
5. Employees are not to receive release time without loss of compensation in order to attend Commission meetings for purposes such as making recommendations or providing information that does not involve appeals.  Such attendance must be charged to an appropriate paid leave or taken as leave without pay.

Employee Notice to Supervisor 

An employee must give his or her immediate supervisor sufficient notice of a request to be released from duty to attend a meeting of the Civil Service Commission or other body.  A department may adopt a general policy requiring specific advance notice if such is needed to permit orderly arrangements to provide staff coverage during the employee's absence. 

Denial or Restriction Due to Business Necessity

A department may deny an employee's request to be absent from duty to appear before the Civil Service Commission or other body if the employee does not give sufficient notice or if there is a bona fide business necessity for the employee to remain on the job at that time.  Except for lack of sufficient notice, denials involving absences by individual employees should occur rarely, only when there is a serious business need that the employee remain on the job at that particular time.  When a number of employees request time off to attend a Civil Service Commission meeting on a similar matter and the release of all employees requesting such time off would interfere with the operations of the department, the department may impose reasonable restrictions on the number of employees who are permitted to attend at a given time. 

Department Direction to Appear

Employees are in a paid status in instances in which the department directs the employees to appear on behalf of the department at a Commission or Board meeting whether or not the appearance is during normal duty hours.  This is subject to the normal policy governing overtime compensation applicable to the employee involved.

​Negotiated Agreement Prevails

For time off expressly authorized by an agreement between the County and a recognized employee organization, the provisions of the agreement shall determine the conditions under which employees are to be released from duty and compensated.