Q. I have an employee who works for me (CSRS) who recently had a preretirement conference with HR. He is a postal worker who is able to carry over 440 hours of earned annual leave from year to year. He plans to retire at the end of this year which ends Dec. 31 or possibly Jan. 2, which would place him in the following leave year. His question is, if he carried over 440 hours of annual leave from 2010 into 2011, and earned another 208 hours of additional annual leave this year, and retired prior to the end of 2011 could he cash in up 648 hours of earned annual leave (assuming he uses no annual leave during this year) since he would not be carrying over any leave into 2012, or is 440 the maximum that he would be able to cash in period? Is this the same for both CSRS and FERS? If he retired on Jan. 1 or later, would he loose the 208 hours from 2011? HR told him he could only cash in 440 hours.
A. His HR was correct. He can only cash out a maximum of 440 hours. Any hours above 440 would be lost.
