For some State House employees, the General Assembly’s decision to wrap up the year during an unusual Saturday session was a bonanza.

They didn’t get overtime pay.

But for every hour they worked that one day they were credited with two hours of paid time off that — with special permission from legislative leaders — they could pile on top of the four weeks of paid time off to which legislative employees are already entitled if they work a heap of overtime.

As a matter of stated policy, General Assembly employees are “capped at 140 hours of comp time per year.” Working the standard 35-hour state workweek, that would be tantamount to a month off.

But, “exceptions can be granted by the speaker or president to exceed the cap,” according to a spokesman for House Speaker William J. Murphy, who chairs the leadership committee known as the Joint Committee on Legislative Services that approves legislative hiring and sets the rules.

The 2008 session ended in a 12-hour blur of stop-and-go activity on Saturday, June 20.

In the month since, JCLS director Marisa White has not responded to repeated inquiries about who was granted this opportunity to amass as much as 24 hours of paid time off for working that one last day of the six-month legislative session.

According to House spokesman Larry Berman, some — but not all questions — will be answered after the JCLS completes the report it is required to provide the Department of Administration by July 31 on all “employee leave balances” at the point the last budget year ended on June 30.

“At that time, she will be able to provide you with the number of employees who exceeded the 140 [hour] cap and were approved to go beyond it. She estimates that it is in the range of about 30 employees, but that is just an estimate at this point,” Berman said.

“She said she is also pulling the numbers together of how many employees worked that Saturday. I will keep you posted,” he apprised Political Scene.

Was it necessary to pay a phalanx of legislative employees double-time to work 12 hours on a Saturday to end a six-month legislative session? The answer:

Given the choice of working through the night Friday or perhaps starting anew the following week, Murphy and Senate President Joseph Montalbano decided around 11 p.m. Friday “that it would be prudent to continue on Saturday rather than go through the night with exhausted members and staff,” Berman said.

“The determination was made in light of the particularly hectic week in which the House approved a budget after some 10 hours of debate on Wednesday. The fact that nearly 300 bills were passed during the Saturday session between the House and the Senate shows that it was more appropriate to meet on Saturday rather than go through the night…. It is also worth noting that the session ended on June 21, which is a week earlier than normal. In the past several years, the session ended in the last week of June.”

And how much it cost depends on how you do the math.

The way the JCLS sees it, Berman said: “The only additional cost to having the closing day on a Saturday [as opposed to the following Monday or Tuesday] was that support staff who normally earn 1.5 hours of comp time for each additional hour worked were authorized to receive 2 hours for each additional hour worked [.5 more for each hour].”

And because of the way the calendar fell this year on the constitutional requirement that lawmakers convene on the first Tuesday in January, this was not the only double-time day for State House workers: Legislative leaders extended the same special benefit to everyone who worked the opening day of session, which this year fell on New Year’s Day.

But for anyone jealous of the opportunity to take a month or more of paid leave time in the glory days of summer, White offers this perspective, through Berman: “No employee received overtime pay. Only those who were required for the legislative session were asked to work… Only the support staff received the two hours per one hour worked rate. That includes those in secretarial and clerical positions, technicians, data entry, etc.; Those considered “professional staff” or supervisory staff earned their straight one hour for every hour worked comp time rate.”

And one more thing. “She wanted you to know that coming in that day was not a personal bonanza, but it was a requirement that is part of the job,” Berman said. “Employees of the legislature don’t simply work on session days and only the hours the legislators are in session. There is a great deal of preparation and follow-up work that goes on before and after and during. ... That’s how the comp time gets built up.”

Other than the extra comp time, he said, “there were no additional expenses... Both the House and Senate ordered sandwiches and pizza for lunch and post-session, but that would have been done had it been a weekday session.”

Crowded race for Dist. 9

The turf wars are under way in a crowded District 9 state Senate race, where the powerful Senate Finance Committee Chairman Stephen Alves must survive a three-way Democratic primary and a contested general election to earn an eighth consecutive term in the General Assembly.

One of Alves’ Democratic challengers, Paul Caianiello Jr., told Political Scene last week that Alves “has too much control in the town of West Warwick.”

How so?

Caianiello said that he had trouble collecting signatures earlier in the month, as required of candidates seeking office, largely because people feared political retribution for backing one of Alves’ opponents.

Constituents “said they were too tied, that they had too much going on with Steve Alves. They were afraid to have their name on my paperwork,” Caianiello said, declining to be more specific.

Alves said he caught wind of Caianiello’s troubles (although Caianiello ultimately collected enough signatures to appear on the ballot).

“He was walking around in my neighborhood,” Alves said with a chuckle. “I know he went to my brother-in-law’s. He said, ‘Absolutely not.’ He went to my niece’s. She said, ‘Absolutely not.’ It’s tough when you talk in a neighborhood where I’ve grown up. I was the paper boy there. I have a lot of family history there.”

The District 9 Democratic primary will also feature Michael J. Pinga.

Ex-Clinton staffer now at Harvard

One Rhode Island political activist who won’t be participating in the now-busy state election season is Christine Heenan, the former Bill Clinton White House staffer who last week was named to the top public affairs job at Harvard University. Heenan, 41, of East Providence, will take over the most prestigious PR post in the 02138 ZIP code on Oct. 1. In her new position, Heenan will be one of six people at World’s Greatest University who reports to university president Drew Faust, the first female president of Harvard.

Heenan, who was also president of the Clarendon Group, the Providence PR and policy shop, was last involved in politics during the 2008 Rhode Island Democratic presidential primary, when she handled press relations for New York Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Clinton crushed Sen. Barack Obama in Rhode Island.

Heenan, who was once an intern in the administration of Gov. Edward D. DiPrete, now lives in Rumford but says she is looking for digs in the Boston area. Heenan is a graduate of Classical High School in Providence and Boston University. She is married to Mike Mello, former chief of staff to Providence Mayor David Cicilline.

New face at the DMV

And speaking of new jobs, the state’s sometimes beleaguered Division of Motor Vehicles has a new staffer.

The agency announced Friday that Sara Rebecca “Sally” Strachan has been appointed associate director of Revenue Services for the DMV.

“Ms. Strachan’s brings more than 30 years of experience with organizations in the private and public sector, leading complex situations, frequently under tight deadlines and budget constraints, which required coordinating multiple participants and partnerships. I am confident her leadership and extensive knowledge of business, technology and support services will be a tremendous asset to the DMV,” Gary Sasse, director of the Department of Revenue, said in a statement.

Strachan currently has her own strategic consulting practice “where she works with clients to identify business needs and opportunities, develop strategic implementation plans, and design and coordinate staffing plans to meet the business criteria,” according to a release. She has worked with multiple state agencies in Rhode Island including the Department of Human Services, the Department of Labor and Training, and the Economic Development Corporation.

Roberts has new chief of staff

Why quit while we’re at it? Also in the new jobs department, Jennifer Wood, Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts’ policy director, has taken over as her chief of staff, following the somewhat mysterious departure of former chief of staff Paul Tencher this spring. Roberts’ office confirms that Wood –– a lawyer and longtime figure in the state’s political circles –– will continue doing both jobs for the foreseeable future.

She joins Michael Tanaka, who recently took the reins as press secretary from Larkin Barker, who left Smith Hill to work on Obama’s New Hampshire team late last month.

mmckinne@projo.com