Q. If a CSRS employee has the 41 years and 11 months (including military time) and would get 80 percent of his wages in retirement, how much more can he get by continuing to work just for the purpose of adding sick leave to his computation? Is there a cap on the percentage of present wages he can get by adding sick leave? And how much would an extra year or two of work accruing normal amounts of sick leave affect his eventual pension?
A. The 80 percent limit applies to an earned annuity. Unused sick leave, which isn’t subject to the limit, can increase that amount. If you had 2,087 hours of sick leave, it would increase your annuity by 2 percent. Because annuities are based on 12 30-day months, roughly 174 hours equals one month, each of which would increase an annuity by 1/6 of a percent.
