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.

Live-in, EVV, and the clock

Many providers record time with Electronic Visit Verification. Methods include a portal, a telephone system, or an app. Live-in providers who self-certify (SOC 2298) have different EVV steps. Ask how those steps meet overtime claiming so you are not reconstructing a week at the end of the period.

If you live with your parent, say so when you ask the workweek questions. If you do not, say that too. The county cannot apply the right local rule to a silence. The caregivers page flags live-in enrollment as its own line.

Two providers and a changing roster

If more than one provider will share authorized time, ask the county how that split is written before anyone enrolls “just in case.” Changing a provider is the handoff guide. Overlapping claims are a pay problem. Coordinating siblings is the family agreement so two children do not both claim the same morning.

A provider change does not, by itself, raise authorized hours. A move to a new county can change the local rate and the local overtime conversation. Ask the new office rather than carrying the old stub as a rule.

Leave wage totals off the kitchen whiteboard

Hourly rates are negotiated locally and change. Do not write a dollar figure from memory on a family chart. Ask the county for the current rate, then ask how overtime is added on top of that rate. Keep both answers with the notice.

If two recipients in the same family have IHSS, ask whether workweek rules look at each case or at the provider’s total week. That answer is local. Write it down so the next timesheet period does not restart the argument. If you also change providers, ask the overtime questions again for the new person. If the notice later changes, ask whether the workweek answer changed with it. The families page keeps the recipient case and the provider clock in one adult-child path. If you want help preparing the questions for the Public Authority, ask for help. California Home Help helps families navigate those pages. The county still applies the local rules.