Kelly days, and the schedules built around them
A Kelly day is a scheduled day off inserted into a firefighter's rotation to bring average weekly hours down. Small idea, big consequences: the Kelly cycle decides your paycheck's overtime line and which weeks feel human.
Why Kelly days exist
A pure 24/48 rotation averages 56 hours a week. Contracts and, in the US, FLSA overtime thresholds for fire personnel often target lower averages. Rather than redesign the whole rotation, departments subtract: every N cycles, one of your tours becomes a scheduled day off, the Kelly day. The larger the N, the smaller the relief.
The common shapes
Classic examples: a 24/48 backbone with a Kelly day every 9th shift day brings the average near 48 hours; every 7th brings it lower. Some departments run debit/credit variants where Kelly days accumulate; "modified Kelly" is the umbrella term for any tuned interval. Two departments can both say Kelly and live different lives, so the questions that matter are: how long is the full repeating cycle, and what average weekly hours does it produce?
Living with one
Kelly cycles are long: patterns that repeat only every few weeks or months, drifting across the calendar. That is precisely the schedule a paper calendar handles worst and an app built for shifts handles best. Feed the full cycle into ShiftAl once, Kelly days included, and read your true month at a glance, hours counted, alarms following the tours.
How often is a Kelly day?
Department-specific: every 7th, 9th or another interval of shift days, set by contract to hit a target average week. Ask for the cycle length; it is the number that defines the schedule.
Are Kelly days paid?
They are scheduled duty-free days, not leave: you are simply not on duty and your pay reflects the contracted average hours. They are separate from vacation and sick banks.
What does modified Kelly mean?
Any department-tuned variant of the basic idea: different interval, debit day mechanics, or combination with 48/96 backbones. The label tells you little; the cycle maths tells you everything.
Take charge of your shifts
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