Retired annuitants working for California state government no longer will get to leave early on Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve, according to a CalHR notice.

Regular state employees will receive up to four hours of “informal time off” that they may use on either of those days in most cases, according to the rules for using it.

Gov. Gavin Newsom followed a 30-year custom in approving the four hours of time off for the holidays, the notice states.

Last year, retired annuitants who worked in December and were scheduled for shifts on Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve qualified for the informal time off.

The change for retired annuitants stems from the Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act, according to the notice. The law, championed by former Gov. Jerry Brown, started phasing out some retirement perks in 2013.

Retired annuitants are former state workers who go back to work at a reduced schedule and don’t accumulate credit for their pensions. Their work is highly regulated to try to prevent “double-dipping,” in which someone collects both a pension and a regular salary from state government.

Regular employees whose work is critical on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve may take the four hours another time as long as they do so before June 30, 2020, according to the notice.

State employees can use the four hours in conjunction with regular time off, according to the notice — for example, they may use four hours of vacation or PTO and the four hours of informal time off to take a full day off.