[Granting of Administrative Leave to Part-Time Employees]

The Department of the Interior requested an advance decision as to whether it may adopt a policy of granting administrative leave to part-time employees for hours which they normally would have worked on a designated or in-lieu-of holiday. GAO noted that formulas for determining which days should be observed as holidays when actual holidays fall on nonworkdays are clearly not designed for application to part-time employees. However, GAO held that an agency is not precluded from granting administrative leave to part-time employees for such holidays granted to full-time employees. GAO held that the administrative difficulties of requiring part-time employees to work when most full-time employees were absent and not able to provide supervision or support services was a sufficient basis upon which to grant administrative leave. Accordingly, GAO did not object to Interior's granting administrative leave to part-time employees for designated or in-lieu-of holidays.