Opinion letter to the Honorable Bud Fendler

JOHN C. DANFORTH ATIORNEY GENERAL March 29, 1976 - OPINION LETTER NO. 33 Honorable Bud Fendler Representative, District 104 Room 402, State Capitol Building Jefferson City, Missouri 65101 Dear Representative Fendler: This letter is in response to your request for an opinion from this office as follows: "Section 321.245 Sub-Section 2 Paragraph 4 R. S • Mo . 19 6 9 . "This section in question, reads as follows. Each Dispatching Center shall employ suf- ficient personnel to insure that no person will be required to be on duty without at least twelve hours beh;een shifts. "Does the language of Section 321.245 Sub- section 2 Paragraph 4 R.S. Mo. 1969, restrict Dispatchers from working with less than 12 hours between work shifts. "The question arises when a dispatcher volun- teers to work in the place of a Dispatcher who is on Vacation or Sick leave. "We work on a 40 hour work week, 8 hours ¢laily, with rotating shifts. "Before a Dispatcher goes on Vacation, a list of the days available for overtime is posted, Honorable Bud Fendler this is then picked by Dispatchers on a Volun- tary basis, with the Dispatcher with the low- est amount of overtime having first choice of the days listed. Should a Dispatcher choose not to work, it then goes to the next Dispatch- er with the next lowest amount of overtime and so on. They may choose the overtime to fall on one of their days off or to work an extra 8 hours on the day of their choice. "This has been the way we have worked overtime since the Dispatching Center was formed in 1968." Section 321.245, subdivision 4, to which you refer, provides as follows: "Each dispatching center shall employ suffi- cient personnel to insure that no person will be required to be on duty without at least twelve hours between shifts. 11 The above-statutory provision provides that sufficient person- nel be employed to insure that no person will be required to be on duty without at least twelve hours between shifts. It does not pro- hibit a person from voluntarily working without twelve hours beJcween · shifts if the board of directors of the fire protection district au- thorizes such ernploymen·t. This is a rna tter for the board of direc·tors to determine. Yours very truly, ~,J~-t~ -2- JOHN C. DANFORTH Attorney General