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Kelly schedule pay

The Kelly schedule pay guide: 24/48, Kelly days, and your paycheck

How Kelly cycles work, why they create wide swings in your paycheck, and how §7(k) overtime applies to the 24/48 rotation. Worked examples for a 27-day Kelly cycle.

10 min read

The Kelly schedule is the most common shift rotation in American firefighting. It's also the source of more "wait, my paycheck doesn't match" conversations than any other schedule. If you're on a 24/48 or a 48/96 rotation and your gross pay swings $400 between pay periods, this guide is for you.

What the Kelly schedule actually is

A "Kelly" schedule is any continuous-coverage rotation that gives each platoon (usually A, B, and C) a fair share of duty hours across a repeating cycle. The mechanic is straightforward: three platoons, two days off for every day on, and a periodic extra day off — the "Kelly day" — that prevents anyone from working too many consecutive 24-hour shifts in a row.

The variants you'll encounter most:

  • 24/48 (1-on, 2-off): the original. Each platoon works one 24-hour shift, then two days off. Repeats. Some weeks you work 48 hours, some weeks you work 72.
  • 48/96 (2-on, 4-off): the "California schedule." Two consecutive 24-hour shifts, then four days off. Less turnout, longer recovery, but even bigger week-to-week swings.
  • Modified Kelly: 24/48 with a Kelly day inserted every 9, 12, or 15 days to lower the cycle average. Common in municipal fire departments trying to hit a specific average weekly-hours number for budget reasons.

Why your paycheck swings

Pay periods don't line up with Kelly cycles. A biweekly pay period is 14 days. A 24/48 cycle is 3 days. A modified Kelly cycle might be 9, 15, 24, or 27 days. The two calendars drift in and out of alignment, and what hits your paycheck depends on how many shifts fell inside each 14-day window.

Example: you're on 24/48 with no Kelly day, $30/hr base, no differentials.

  • Pay period A: 5 shifts × 24 hours = 120 hours scheduled. Gross at straight time: $3,600.
  • Pay period B: 4 shifts × 24 hours = 96 hours scheduled. Gross at straight time: $2,880.

$720 gross difference between consecutive pay periods. Same job, same rate, same nominal schedule. Just a calendar mismatch.

Where §7(k) overtime fits in

The FLSA §7(k) exemption (explained in detail here) lets fire employers use up to a 28-day work period for overtime calculation. For firefighters the threshold is 212 hours per 28 days, prorated:

  • 53 hours per 7-day work period
  • 106 hours per 14-day work period
  • 159 hours per 21-day work period
  • 212 hours per 28-day work period

Most Kelly-cycle departments pick a work period that aligns with the cycle: 24 or 27 days for a 24-day modified Kelly, 28 days otherwise. Hours past the work-period threshold trigger overtime; hours under are paid at straight time.

On a no-Kelly-day 24/48 over a 28-day work period, you'll work somewhere between 216 and 240 hours depending on where the cycle falls. That puts you 4–28 hours into overtime per work period — which is real money, but easy to miscount if you're tracking by calendar week instead of work period.

The Kelly day and your pensionable hours

Here's the part that gets overlooked: a Kelly day is unpaid time off. It lowers your average weekly hours, which lowers your gross pay, which (in many pension systems) lowers your final-average-salary base. Some departments structure the Kelly day as paid leave or convert it to a vacation accrual — those configurations affect pensionable earnings differently.

If your department recently added or removed Kelly days from the rotation, ask HR or your union rep whether the change affected your pensionable hours calculation. The math compounds over a career.

What to track every pay period

  1. Actual hours worked per shift, not just scheduled. Holdovers and callbacks count.
  2. The work period boundary — when did this work period start, when does it end, and how many hours have you worked in it so far.
  3. Cumulative pensionable hours for the calendar year if you're nearing eligibility, retirement, or a step increase threshold.
  4. Differentials by shift — your night-shift hours, paramedic-premium hours, FTO premium hours all need to be tracked separately because each rolls up to a different paycheck line and a different pensionable subtotal.

How DutyPay handles Kelly schedules

DutyPay models the Kelly cycle as a first-class concept — platoon rosters (A/B/C/D), Kelly day insertions, and §7(k) work-period overtime are configured once and applied automatically. Each paycheck shows the cycle position, the work-period totals, and the swing between consecutive pay periods, so when your gross looks "wrong" you can see exactly why before you call HR. It's free.

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