Some of the most senior officials of the Bloomberg administration seem to be itching to get out of town early on Fridays.

Calls to 25 city agencies last Friday found that 10 top officials had left early or were gone for the day. One was vacationing in the West, another had just begun a weeklong holiday with his family, and others had skipped out of the office early.

A spokesman for Mayor Bloomberg, Stuart Loeser, did not appear concerned about the missing officials, telling The New York Sun via e-mail that when a commissioner is out of the office, it’s typically the first deputy commissioner who takes charge.

With the state Legislature on break, the City Council calendar nearly empty, and New York settling into the quiet stretch of summer that begins with August and doesn’t end until after Labor Day weekend, there could be more of that going on than usual.

The commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, Shaun Donovan, left the office around 2:45 p.m. last Friday, a spokesman for the department, Neill Coleman, said. The sanitation commissioner, John Doherty, departed around 4 p.m., a spokeswoman in that office said.

The schools chancellor, Joel Klein, was on vacation in Colorado. The parks commissioner, Adrian Benepe, had just started a week-long family getaway. Even WABC’s John Gambling, who hosts a weekly radio show with Mr. Bloomberg every Friday, is on vacation. Their next show will be August 31.

The head of the New York Civic, Henry Stern, a former parks commissioner, said the old adage “When the cat‘s away, the mice will play” is true for city agencies. “When the commissioner leaves the building, you don’t expect much business to be transacted in his wake,” he said.

He said he doesn’t think the Bloomberg administration has a problem with lazy commissioners, but noted that in the past, especially in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s, some top city officials rarely showed up for work, regardless of the season.

Other commissioners and city officials out of the office last Friday afternoon, according to employees who answered the phone, were the commissioner of the Department of Aging, Edwin Mendez-Santiago; the chairwoman of the Department of City Planning, Amanda Burden; the buildings commissioner, Patricia Lancaster, the consumer affairs commissioner, Jonathan Mintz, the commissioner of the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, Paul Cosgrave, and the commissioner of the Office of Labor Relations, James Hanley.

Commissioners who began working for the city before July 1, 2004, have 20 vacation days a year; those hired after that date have 18.

During the blackout of August 2003, the transportation commissioner at the time, Iris Weinshall, was in Europe with her family, but Mr. Bloomberg told her not to rush back, “because if she had full faith in her first deputy, Judy Bergtraum, he did as well,” Mr. Loeser told the Sun.

After a tornado struck Brooklyn last week, 10 commissioners gathered in the hardest-hit neighborhoods that morning, Mr. Loeser said.

Mr. Bloomberg encourages staff and commissioners to take time off when it makes sense for their offices and their agencies, his spokesman added.

Working Americans receive an average of 14 vacations days a year, but 35% don’t use all of them, according to a 2007 survey of vacation habits by Expedia.com, an online travel agency. Nearly a quarter of respondents said they checked work e-mail or voicemail while vacationing, the survey said.

A spokeswoman for Speaker Christine Quinn, Maria Alvarado, said the City Council leader was working last Friday, but the phones rang unanswered at the offices of the majority leader, Council Member Joel Rivera, just before 5 p.m.

Yesterday, Mr. Rivera said he had been attending a concert in a Bronx park that his office sponsored that afternoon.

The minority leader, Council Member James Oddo, said he was in and out of the office on Friday, even though he technically had taken the day off. He balked at questions about his schedule, saying that even when he’s away from the office, “it’s work all the time.” The executive director of government watchdog group Citizens Union, Richard Dadey, was called to discuss this story, but could not be reached for comment.

His assistant, Bethel Goffe, said he was out of the office on vacation.