Q. If an employee is furloughed 14 days, will he or she lose annual leave time or sick leave time, or will it be as though they worked those days (hours) and were never furloughed. If an employee is furloughed 14 days, will he or she lose retirement time (i.e. will their retirement anniversary date change?)
A. A 14-day furlough won’t affect your service computation date. As for annual and sick leave, here’s what OPM has to say:
“The accumulation of nonpay status hours during a leave year can affect the accrual of annual leave and sick leave. (See 5 CFR 630.208(a).) For example, when a full-time employee with an 80-hour biweekly tour of duty accumulates a total of 80 hours of nonpay status from the beginning of the leave year (either in one pay period or over the course of several pay periods), the employee will not earn annual and sick leave in the pay period in which that 80-hour accumulation is reached. If the employee again accumulates 80 hours of nonpay status, he or she will again not earn leave in the pay period in which that new 80-hour total is reached. (This means that a full-time employee who is in the 6-hour annual leave accrual category and who has accumulated 80 hours of nonpay status in the last pay period of the year will forfeit 10 hours of leave accrual in that pay period.) At the end of the leave year, any accumulation of nonpay status hours of less than 80 hours is zeroed out so that the accumulation for the next leave year starts at zero. For part-time employees, leave accrual is prorated based on hours in a pay status in each pay period; thus, time in nonpay status reduces leave accrual in each pay period containing such time (5 CFR 630.303 and 5 U.S.C. 6307).”
