What is a Kelly Day?
The Fire Department is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Sycamore Fire Department runs three “platoon shifts” and one swing shift. Each “platoon shift” has eight people on it and they work rotation days of twenty-four hours on and forty-eight hours off. Sycamore firefighters work 2588 hours* (without overtime) per year, which is 49.77 hours a week. Every ninth rotation day, platoon shift personnel are afforded a “Kelly Day.” A Kelly day is a day off given to a municipal firefighter to reduce their hours worked in a pay period, which would otherwise lead to excess amounts of money spent on overtime. It’s called a “Kelly” day because it was devised in 1936 by Chicago Mayor, Edward J. Kelly for the Chicago Fire Department. Chicago firefighters were so fond of Mayor Kelly, they named him an “Honorary Fire Chief” in July 1934. * A Standard 40 hour week will result in a total of 2080 hours in one year. What is KEC? The Kishwaukee Education Consortium (KEC) is an association of area high sc