An engineer grapples with TSR – what do you expect? It’s about math and numbers…

- By Paul Pickett
TSR Leave and Annual Leave: One of the quirks in the contract involves TSR Leave, Sick Leave, and Annual Leave. Everyone now agrees that if your TSRL has been approved for future use, it’s no longer “available” - so you can schedule SL as needed. However, if you have TSRL approved for future use and then want to take additional AL, you have to cancel your future TSRL and use it immediately, then reschedule future AL.

Union leaders and staff think this is a pain in the neck, and Ecology management seems to agree. However the State Office of Labor Relations won’t budge. So we are working with the union to ask for a special side-agreement to let TSRL be used with AL just like it’s used for SL. If this moves forward, we’ll let you know.

TSR Leave for Part-time employees: Full-time employees have it easy. After you work 80 hours you get 5.2 hours of TSRL. Simple. Unfortunately PT employees have to wait until the end of the month to know what their accrual is and the catch is if you are taking vacation on the first of the next month, you need to know that TSRL accrual to make an accurate request so you use the TSRL before your annual leave.

What also makes it tricky for part time employees is that your holiday, personal leave, and personal holiday, as well as your TSRL accrual, are based on your percent of actual work time each month, but your percent time actually worked includes your holiday, PL, and PH time. For Excel users, this is called a “circular reference”.

I’ve asked management how they do the calculation, and I haven’t gotten an answer back yet. So to get a close estimate, as a PT person myself, I’ve set up a spreadsheet to do the calculation. I have my monthly timesheet in Excel with the hours I actually work recorded for each day. Then I total the hours for the month and calculate the percentage I worked for the month.  I multiply that percentage by 8 to get my holiday, PL, or PH time, and by 5.2 to get my TSRL accrued.

Another quirk is that TSRL is reported to 1/100th of an hour (36 seconds!), while you can only request leave to 1/10th of an hour (6 minutes).  This seems silly, but it does create a Catch-22: if you ask for too little TSRL before using AL, or if you ask for more TSRL than you accrue, either way you violate the contract.

Management has agreed to a practical solution: track your TSRL to the 1/100th, but round down to the nearest 1/10th when you make a request. That dangling 1/100th will roll over to the next month. Worst case is you won’t be able to use up to 9/100th when TSRL ends – but luckily that’s only 5.4 minutes of pay lost.  ■

Exchange time goes to a statewide summit with management

-  By Scott Mallery

A month or so back, I attended the first meeting between state-wide management and several Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE) members from a few other state agencies.  This meeting was to discuss overtime-exempt employees’ use of exchange time, part of our current contract that was effective July 1, 2011.  It was also to discuss Memorandum of Understanding #8 (Overtime Exempt use of Exchange time).

During this meeting, we (WFSE members) expressed concerns about how exchange time is being implemented by agencies and how we would like to see it managed.   It appears right now that major agencies are having employees adjust their schedules like we do at Ecology, and very little or no exchange time “for the books” is allowed.  Our suggestion for managing exchange use was:


• Let exempt employees have the choice of adjusting their schedules or bank exchange time for later use
• One for one hour exchange time after 40 hours
• Consistent between agencies similar to exchange time policy prior to July 2005

• Management gave some feedback on our suggestions during the meeting.  A more formal response will be given at our next meeting, not yet scheduled. 

Here’s a quick summary of management’s response:


• We want to ensure that the employee has the best quality of life and adjusting their schedule helps that.
• With one for one, this might give the appearance that the employee is overtime-eligible and the employee could lose their overtime-exempt status. There was a lot more discussion than what I summarized here—but that is the nut shell of what we discussed.  I am looking forward to the next meeting.

We also requested data from agencies documenting the use of exchange time from July 2007 to now.  From the material I reviewed (which I thought was from July 2007  to current), I found that about 200 employees had exchange time on the books.  I sent an email in accordance with Article 39.3.C to individuals listed letting them know they might have exchange time.  I asked them to check a spreadsheet and double check with their time keeper to verify the time.

From that email, it was pointed out that some of the information I sent out was not correct.  I found out that the information was only from July 2007 to June 2009 and that there was another report covering July 2009 to June 2011 sent to WFSE a couple days prior to my email.

From all this it is important to know that Ecology has notified individuals of their correct exchange time and beginning on the September 26 payday, your Earning Statement will now show your exchange time balance. Further, you can also use your accrued exchange time before TSR leave. 

Finally, I would appreciate from you any suggestions about the accrual of exchange time, and/or any other ideas on exchange time.  It will help me represent you at the next statewide meeting on overtime-exempt use of exchange time.  You can contact me at scott1221@live.com.  ■

Evaulation season is here!

- Recommendations from Stewards and Staff

Stewards keep running into problems with employee evaluations because employees don’t understand the process or know their rights. Here are a few basic tips that should help:

1.    Evaluations are just your supervisor’s opinion. They are supposed to be constructive, based on objective findings, not disciplinary, and you don’t have to agree with what they say.

2.    Review the evaluation and suggest edits. The best situation is where you can negotiate language that you can both live with. If something bugs you, try wording it differently.  And it’s ok to agree to work on areas of improvement.

3.    If your supervisor won’t change language to something acceptable, write a rebuttal into Section 4. Feel free to add extra sheets. This is your chance to tell your side of the story. They have to include it whether they like it or not. Be respectful because this form goes into your permanent personnel file, not your supervisor’s personnel file.


4.    You have to sign the evaluation or face a charge of insubordination. You are just signing that you have read it, not that you agree. If you don’t like the evaluation, make a note above your signature that you have read the evaluation but disagree with the findings.

Here are a few pointers for updating PDF’s:

• The form needs to be a consensus document that both you and your supervisor agree reflects what you actually do in your job.

• Do not agree to put anything on the PDF that is above your job specifications.  If you sign such a PDF, you are agreeing to perform higher level duties for lower level pay.  You can still work above your level to develop skills, training, etc., just leave it off the PDF.  Document your performance of higher job class work in your evaluation and in your personnel file.
• Do not put on the PDF any duties that are from other job classes.  For example, if you are performing administrative duties like filing, copying, etc., but these duties are not part of your job specification.

• Be clear and precise.  Eliminate vague, undefined, or flowery words.  Use action words to describe your work.

• Pay close attention to the skills and abilities section, and make sure it is accurate.  This is critical and is relied upon heavily by Human Resources in the event of a reduction-in-force.

• If there is a disagreement over your PDF you can get help by contacting a steward.  ■