Vacations 2008: New Rules

I've been studying Special Bulletin 171 and talking to the Lead Chief and other people about the new vacation policy. A lot of things are still unclear, but as of now these are the rules we'll go by for requesting vacations for 2008:

* Send your vacation requests by email to: capcuervo@gmail.com. You can just send them as text in the email. You don't have to send them on a special form.

* On the first go-around, everyone will be allowed to put in for up to their maximum number of vacation days accrued, as follows:

• 1 to 15 years of service: accrue 7.5, 24-hour vacation days
  
• 16 years of service: accrue 8, 24-hour vacation days
• 17 years of service: accrue 8.5, 24-hour vacation days
• 18 years of service: accrue 9, 24-hour vacation days
• 19 years of service: accrue 9.5, 24-hour vacation days
• 20 years of service: accrue 10, 24-hour vacation days
• 21 years of service: accrue 10.5, 24-hour vacation days
• 22 years of service: accrue 11, 24-hour vacation days

After everyone has had a chance to ask for all their accrued days, we'll have another round of requests for the remaining days. How exactly will we dole out those remaining days? I'm not sure yet.

* Unless someone tells me otherwise, the "point five" days I'll round up to the next number. For example, if you're allowed 7.5 days, I'll let you request 8. [This may be subject to change if I get new information.]

* A total of 6 B-Shift members may be off on any one day.

* A total of 6 members in the district can request all of their debit days as their first vacation choice. What about partial debit day requests? I don't know yet.

* In June, July and August you can only take 2 tours and a debit day.

* As the vacation requests come in I'll enter them on this on-line spreadsheet vacation list, so you can see if you got the days you requested, or got bumped out by someone with higher seniority.

* IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to check the list and make sure that your requests are entered accurately and fairly, and to notify me if there are any problems.

* The deadline for the whole vacation request process is December 20th. That's when I have to send the finalized official vacation sheet to Emergency Operations.

* Please get your requests in AS SOON AS POSSIBLE and be patient during this process. Everything has changed this year. I'm trying to be as fair and organized as I can, but there will be changes and mistakes along the way.