State Employees Look For Ways To Make Up Lost Snow Days

The snow kept more than 40,000 state workers off the job. Some missed almost two weeks of work, and that is a lot of time to make up.

Mollie Doll of theState Personnel Departmentsays there is a flip side to the work day crisis.

"For a lot of private sector folks or service industries, there's no option," Doll said. "You will be taking vacation time if you weren't at work."

State workers can deduct time missed from overtime, sick, or vacation hours. Making up the time is the hard part.

The state would like to have them do it during the normal Monday to Friday work week, but has to find a way around federal rules saying anything over 40 hours counts towards overtime pay.

"We just asked the question, and we haven't received an answer," Doll said. "We don't even know if we're gonna be able to do that."

The state is trying to give workers more options, but may be doing a better job of complicating the matter.

"It can be a little confusing," said state employee Nancy Morris. "We're constantly going back and saying, 'Is this the way we can do it? You know let's go over it again.'"

"Of course, anything new is kind of confusing for everyone to get used to," Morris said.