Animal Welfare Professionals

I'm reviewing employee benefits and I'd love to hear from others how many paid holidays your organization offers and if you offer 1.5x or 2x pay (or some other compensation like an extra PTO day) for animal care staff who have to work on holidays?

#OrganizationalManagement
#PeopleManagement(includingVolunteerIntegration)

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Suzanne Jalot
Executive Director
Brown County Humane Society
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Hi, Suzanne!

I work for a municipal animal shelter/adoption center/animal protection facility.  Our city offers 8 paid holidays.  Staff normally scheduled to work the rotation that the holiday falls on work a modified schedule on that date and get premium pay for physical hours worked in addition to the holiday pay offered to all employees.  Staff do have the option of converting any OT accrued for a holiday week into OT comp time in lieu of receving OT pay on that pay period's paycheck.

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Ronda Murphy
Office Support Specialist
League City Animal Care
TX
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Thank you Ronda! I appreciate you sharing this info it's very helpful!

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Suzanne Jalot
Executive Director
Brown County Humane Society
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-29-2026 06:38 AM
From: Ronda Murphy
Subject: Paid Holidays

Hi, Suzanne!

I work for a municipal animal shelter/adoption center/animal protection facility.  Our city offers 8 paid holidays.  Staff normally scheduled to work the rotation that the holiday falls on work a modified schedule on that date and get premium pay for physical hours worked in addition to the holiday pay offered to all employees.  Staff do have the option of converting any OT accrued for a holiday week into OT comp time in lieu of receving OT pay on that pay period's paycheck.

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Ronda Murphy
Office Support Specialist
League City Animal Care
TX
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Hi Suzanne,

At Greater Androscoggin Humane Society we have 7 paid holidays. Part-time staff receive 1.5x their hourly rate for all hours worked on that day. Full-time staff can take the day off with full pay, or if they work on the holiday, or the holiday falls on their regular day off, they have 30 days to use it like an extra PTO day.

Ken Schlichting

Executive Director

Greater Androscoggin Humane Society

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Ken Schlichting
Operations Manager
Greater Androscoggin Humane Society
ME
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Thanks for sharing Ken! It's so helpful to have information from other orgs!

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Suzanne Jalot
Executive Director
Brown County Humane Society
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-29-2026 09:31 AM
From: Ken Schlichting
Subject: Paid Holidays

Hi Suzanne,

At Greater Androscoggin Humane Society we have 7 paid holidays. Part-time staff receive 1.5x their hourly rate for all hours worked on that day. Full-time staff can take the day off with full pay, or if they work on the holiday, or the holiday falls on their regular day off, they have 30 days to use it like an extra PTO day.

Ken Schlichting

Executive Director

Greater Androscoggin Humane Society

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Ken Schlichting
Operations Manager
Greater Androscoggin Humane Society
ME
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Suzanne,

Protectors of Animal Life Society (PALS) is both a non-profit cat shelter and low-cost feline vet service.  We have 12 paid holidays. The vet side is closed on holidays, and full-time employees receive a paid vacation day.  On the shelter side, the shelter is closed on holidays and workers come in for a short shift to care for the cats and leave for the day. Full-time staff scheduled to work that day, can either take a paid day off or work a short shift (paid for regular scheduled hours) and have an additional PTO day.  Part-time staff that are scheduled on the holiday, work a short shift and get paid for their regular scheduled hours.

Theresa Silsby, Executive Director

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Theresa Silsby
Executive Director
Protectors of Animal Life Society
ME
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Thank you Theresa! So helpful!

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Suzanne Jalot
Executive Director
Brown County Humane Society
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-31-2026 07:25 AM
From: Theresa Silsby
Subject: Paid Holidays

Suzanne,

Protectors of Animal Life Society (PALS) is both a non-profit cat shelter and low-cost feline vet service.  We have 12 paid holidays. The vet side is closed on holidays, and full-time employees receive a paid vacation day.  On the shelter side, the shelter is closed on holidays and workers come in for a short shift to care for the cats and leave for the day. Full-time staff scheduled to work that day, can either take a paid day off or work a short shift (paid for regular scheduled hours) and have an additional PTO day.  Part-time staff that are scheduled on the holiday, work a short shift and get paid for their regular scheduled hours.

Theresa Silsby, Executive Director

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Theresa Silsby
Executive Director
Protectors of Animal Life Society
ME
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The Town of Telluride, CO has the following listed in our policy manual

New Year's Day January 1
• Martin Luther King Day Third Monday in January
• President's Day Third Monday in February
• Memorial Day Last Monday in May
• Juneteenth June 19
• Independence Day July 4
• Labor Day First Monday in September
• Thanksgiving and the next day Fourth Thurs and Fri in Nov
• Christmas December 25

They don't list Christmas Eve but the Town Manager usually sends everyone home on a 1/2 day the day before Christmas Eve and gives Christmas Eve has a holiday. 

Hourly employees are not eligible for holiday hours and are paid holiday premium pay of one and one-half (1.5) times the employee's regular rate of pay for hours worked
on either the observed or actual holiday, not both.

The maximum banked holiday flex hours allowed to be used consecutively is twenty-four (24) hours, or three (3) eight (8) hour workdays.

Holiday flex banked and unused hours are paid out on the pay period corresponding to the last pay date in the calendar year. Any accrued Holiday flex time is eligible for pay
out at separation from employment; holidays occurring after date of separation are not eligible for pay out.

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Jeanette Loven
Senior Code Enforcement/Animal Control Officer/FTO
Telluride Marshals Office
CO
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Thank you Jeanette!

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Suzanne Jalot
Executive Director
Brown County Humane Society
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-01-2026 06:21 AM
From: Jeanette Loven
Subject: Paid Holidays

The Town of Telluride, CO has the following listed in our policy manual

New Year's Day January 1
• Martin Luther King Day Third Monday in January
• President's Day Third Monday in February
• Memorial Day Last Monday in May
• Juneteenth June 19
• Independence Day July 4
• Labor Day First Monday in September
• Thanksgiving and the next day Fourth Thurs and Fri in Nov
• Christmas December 25

They don't list Christmas Eve but the Town Manager usually sends everyone home on a 1/2 day the day before Christmas Eve and gives Christmas Eve has a holiday. 

Hourly employees are not eligible for holiday hours and are paid holiday premium pay of one and one-half (1.5) times the employee's regular rate of pay for hours worked
on either the observed or actual holiday, not both.

The maximum banked holiday flex hours allowed to be used consecutively is twenty-four (24) hours, or three (3) eight (8) hour workdays.

Holiday flex banked and unused hours are paid out on the pay period corresponding to the last pay date in the calendar year. Any accrued Holiday flex time is eligible for pay
out at separation from employment; holidays occurring after date of separation are not eligible for pay out.

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Jeanette Loven
Senior Code Enforcement/Animal Control Officer/FTO
Telluride Marshals Office
CO
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Hi Suzanne, I work at a municipal shelter. Our city has 9 observed holidays. The city pays us our normal 8 hours for that day and we have the day off. There is always an Animal Welfare Officer on call, so if they are called in for an animal emergency on the holiday, they receive their call-back pay, which is time and a half. Our kennel technician who usually ends up working on the holiday does get holiday pay, time and a half.

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Rachel Wasserman
Animal Welfare Supervisor
Stillwater Animal Welfare
OK
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Great! Thanks Rachel!

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Suzanne Jalot
Executive Director
Brown County Humane Society
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-02-2026 11:46 AM
From: Rachel Wasserman
Subject: Paid Holidays

Hi Suzanne, I work at a municipal shelter. Our city has 9 observed holidays. The city pays us our normal 8 hours for that day and we have the day off. There is always an Animal Welfare Officer on call, so if they are called in for an animal emergency on the holiday, they receive their call-back pay, which is time and a half. Our kennel technician who usually ends up working on the holiday does get holiday pay, time and a half.

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Rachel Wasserman
Animal Welfare Supervisor
Stillwater Animal Welfare
OK
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Hi Suzanne,

I also manage a municipal animal shelter.  Our county offers 13 days off for holidays.  We only have 3 FT employees at our shelter (we are small).  We rotate the holidays so not one person does them all the time.  Per our union contract, we only work 35 hours a week.  So, the pay for the holiday is 7 hours.  One of us has to work that day and gets paid 1.5 rate for the hours they are there on top of the holiday pay we get at a regular rate.  It is a modified schedule, so it is not the entire 7 hours that we work on holidays. 

Shannon Becker, Manager

Mackinac County Animal Shelter, Michigan

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Shannon Becker
Manager/Administrator
Mackinac County Animal Shelter
MI
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Hi Suzanne,
I work at a private, not-for-profit shelter with government contracts. We have 8 paid holidays per year: New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Indigenous Peoples Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. If a holiday falls on a normally scheduled day off, staff will get an extra PTO day to use within that week.  Staff that work the holiday receive holiday pay for hours worked and an extra PTO day to be used within that week. 

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Stephanie DeThomas
Volunteer Manager
Potter League for Animals
RI
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Thank you everyone! This is great info and will be so helpful when I go to the board to address holiday benefits for our staff.

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Suzanne Jalot
Executive Director
Brown County Humane Society
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Suzanne,

It looks like you have enough input but in case it's helpful, I'll share what I found when I was researching this for my non-profit a couple of years ago.

I looked at benchmarks in the Association for Animal Welfare Advancement's Compensation and Benefits survey, a state nonprofit survey, and posted to a network of nonprofit EDs. 

I found it was most common for orgs to give all of the federal holidays off. Quite a few orgs provided 2-4 floating holidays on top of that. Less commonly, orgs made some or all holidays floating in recognition of staff who didn't celebrate certain religious holidays. But because schools and most other businesses operate on the Federal holiday schedule, most orgs have those holidays and built in flexibility as possible for staff.

We managed our holiday pay by giving all part-time employees a half day of holiday pay and all full-time employees a full day for each holiday. So if they worked that day, they just got paid in addition to having received the holiday pay. 

Good luckwith your board!

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Karen Green, CAWA
Ask Karen Green
http://askkarengreen.com
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-03-2026 01:15 PM
From: Suzanne Jalot
Subject: Paid Holidays

Thank you everyone! This is great info and will be so helpful when I go to the board to address holiday benefits for our staff.

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Suzanne Jalot
Executive Director
Brown County Humane Society
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