Getting properties of a child class using parent class reference

Hi,

I have a parent class, Department and two sub classes PayrollDept and HrDept

Department contains the common attributes between PayrollDept and HrDept

Class Department{
// Set of common attributes between PayrollDept and HrDept
protected int general code;
//setters and getters


}
So, I have
Class PayrollDept extends Department{
private String name,
private String description,
private int numDays;
private int paycheckCode

PayrollDept(String name, String description, int numDays, int payCheckCode, int generalCode){
super();
this.name = name;
this.description = description;
this.numDays = numDays;
this.paycheckCode = paycheckCode;
this.generalCode = generalCode;
}

// Setters and getters for the attributes in this class
}

Similar structure for Class HrDept.

I have a class, TestDeptRunner, where I pass in a list of departments to a method.

Class TestDeptRunner{

TestDeptRunner(List<Department> dptList){

}
checkDeptStat(dptList) {
// Here I would like to check if the dptList is of type PayrollDept and
// get the private variables of Payroll Dept
// I would like to do the same for HrDept

Is it possible to do that?

}

}

Class TestRunner{

// I am getting a list of PayrollDept objects from a sql object  and am getting a list of HrDept objects from a sql object
// I would like to pass them as a list of Department objects to the TestDeptRunner referenced
 // above. I will calling TestDeptRunner twice for that purpose. How can I do that effectively?
}

Thanks