Hazardous Duty Differential is additional compensation paid to employees who are exposed to high-risk working conditions in certain agency/facility locations for which they are not otherwise compensated.

The Director of Classification and Compensation is authorized, with approval of the Director of the Budget, to determine the amount, position titles and conditions under which payment of the differential is warranted. The differential is not a part of an employee’s basic annual salary and does not affect other provisions of the law concerning salary determination.

The program commenced January 1, 1987 for full and part-time employees in eligible positions who are exposed to the hazardous situation at least 50% of their regular work schedule. Other employees who substitute during absences of the regularly scheduled employees are entitled to the differential for the number of hours of service they render in the substitute position.

Payment is due only for hours the employee actually works. Employee excused time off which is charged to accumulated leave credits is not considered time worked and is not compensable.

An eligible employee who is recalled to work overtime and entitled to minimum recall pay receives the differential (at the overtime rate) only for the hours actually worked while in recall status; the employee does not receive 4 hours of hazardous differential unless he or she actually works 4 hours.

The fact that an eligible employee works during their regularly scheduled hours on a date observed as a holiday and for which she or he receives additional holiday pay is not significant; the hazardous differential and the number of hours payable is calculated as if the holiday were a regular work day.

The smallest unit of time an eligible employee works during their regularly scheduled hours on a date observed as a holiday and for which she or he receives additional holiday pay is not significant; the hazardous differential and the number of hours payable is calculated as if the holiday were a regular work day.

The smallest unit of time an eligible employee must work during a normal work day in order to receive hazardous differential is one hour. Thereafter, time is rounded-up or rounded down to the nearest quarter-hour segment.

The smallest unit of time an eligible employee must work during an overtime shift is one-quarter hour. Once an employee works in excess of 40 hours during a workweek and qualifies for overtime pay, he or she is entitled to payment of hazardous differential at time and one-half.

Payment is at the rate of $.75 per hour for regular hours (including time worked between 37 ½ and 40 hour per workweek for which an employee earns compensatory time) and $1.13 per hour for all hours actually worked during which an employee qualifies for overtime pay.