Holidays

• New Year’s Day

• Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday

• Mardi Gras Day

• Good Friday

• Independence Day

• Labor Day

• Inauguration Day (every four years – Baton Rouge only)

• General Election Day (every two years)

• Veterans’ Day

• Thanksgiving Day

• Christmas Day

If any of these holidays fall on a weekend, the nearest workday is generally proclaimed to be the holiday. 

The Governor may proclaim other holidays as deemed appropriate.

The statute contains a list of other recognized holidays from which the Governor may select two additional holidays, one of which shall be Memorial Day.

For employees who do not work a regular, Monday through Friday, 5-day, 40-hour work schedule, the actual dates and hours of holidays can become a point of confusion.  Each agency’s Human Resource Office should be consulted in these cases to ensure employees receive the holiday they are entitled to. 

In general, if an employee’s regular day off is the day upon which a statutory or declared holiday falls, the employee’s appointing authority will select an alternate “designated” workday which shall be that employee’s holiday.  The employee can have the day off or, if required by the appointing authority to work on that day, shall receive appropriate compensation for working on his/her holiday.   It should be noted that compensation may be in the form of cash or compensatory leave.   In these cases, the employee’s holiday is the designated day, not the actual statutory or declared holiday.

For a holiday, the employee receives the same amount of time off that the employee would be required to use if the employee took leave on that day of the week.  For instance, if an employee’s schedule is such that he works 4 hours on Fridays, then for a holiday that falls on Friday, the

employee is off for his full 4-hour work day and thus the employee’s holiday is 4 hours.  Conversely, if an employee works 10 hours on Friday, then that employee is off for his full 10-hour workday on the Friday holiday, and thus this employee’s holiday is 10 hours.  In other words, a holiday is not a pre-determined number of hours, but is a day of work, and therefore it may differ from employee to employee depending upon the employee’s work schedule and the day of the week that the holiday

falls on.