IHSS Workweek and Overtime Basics

Authorized hours are the first schedule

Before overtime, there is a notice. The Notice of Action lists the tasks and hours the county authorized. That is the work you may claim. Building a personal schedule that is larger than the notice does not create overtime. It creates a gap between family help and paid time. If hours seem low is the case path for that gap.

The after-notice checklist is the right moment to ask how a workweek is counted. Ask while you set up timesheets, not after a warrant looks unexpected. First payment explains share of cost, which can also change the number on the check.

Ask locally. Do not freeze a statewide figure.

California has workweek and overtime rules for IHSS providers. Counties and Public Authorities apply them, and the written numbers change. A figure you memorize from a training last year can be wrong this year. A figure from a cousin’s county can be wrong in yours. Ask the office that will accept your timesheet.

• How they define the workweek for IHSS providers in this county
• When overtime applies, and how you claim it on the timesheet
• Whether more than one recipient or more than one provider changes the math
• Whether travel between recipients is treated as work time
• What happens if claimed time is over the authorized amount

Write the answers into the folder. Tracking paperwork is how a later sibling or a new provider inherits the same facts. Talking to the county office is the call pattern.