Q: Regarding your May 24 post, “Credit for Military Service,” your last paragraph states, in part, “If you are approved for regular LWOP, you make take up to six months leave within a calendar year and get credit for that time without having to make a deposit.” Could you please identify the statute that you draw that from? A: Title II – Leave, Civilian Personnel Law Manual, Chapter 5, Part F – Leave Without Pay authorizes agencies, at their sole discretion, to grant leave without pay to its employees. While a separate authority exists to protect the rights of members…
Browsing: Benefits
Q: I have a question regarding locality pay determination. I have been accepted to attend the Army War College starting in July. I will be there for 10 months. Since I am at Fort Monroe and will be reassigned to the Pentagon but will be TDY to Carlisle Barracks to attend the War College, shouldn’t my locality pay be determined by where I am assigned? A: While I don’t know what your official duty station should be, I can give you some information that may be helpful. Certain location-based pay entitlements, such as locality pay, are based on the location…
Q: I learned in 2008 that my disability retirement annuity is wrong because my Preliminary and Final SF 2806 forms were prepared by a state-funded agency rather than my former employer. I was an Army Department employee. I have provided extensive evidence to OPM, however, they have refused to correct my annuity or explain why a state-funded agency prepared my separation documents, why they don’t match the personnel action forms prepared by my former employer, and why my last day in pay status was provided to OPM by the state-funded agency two months after I was separated. I have been…
Q: My father retired from federal civil service in 1974. At that time, he elected a survivor annuity for my mother with a base of $1,300. Initially, the Office of Personnel Management took out about $175 a month from his annuity for the survivor annuity, and of course this went up annually via cost-of-living adjustments, the same way his regular annuity did. He passed away in 2009. The OPM has calculated the survivor annuity for my mother, and she is receiving $789 a month net, reduced by $153 for insurance, which leaves $636 a month. Over the 35 years of…
Q: The 2011 open-enrollment season will to intoduce a voluntary sub-option for annuitants who receive Medicare Part B. Can you give me an update on this Office of Personnel Management proposal? Will all the participatng plans offer this, especially Blue Cross/Blue Shield? A: On April 7, OPM issued its annual call letter to plans participating in the Federal Employees Health Benefits program. In the letter, it encouraged them to propose “pilot programs wherein participating carriers offer a sub-option for Medicare-eligible annuitants as an alternate choice within their existing option(s). The sub-option may include premium pass-through accounts to be used solely…
Q: Will the 2011 family plan premiums increase significantly because of the new law requiring dependent coverage until age 26, or will the Office of Personnel Management create a new plan other than “single” or “family”? A: I’m not aware of anything in the the new law, other than adding dependent children up to age 26, that would affect next year’s health benefits premiums. And I’m not aware of any plans to request a change in the Federal Employees Health Benefit Act that would permit the addition of another option.
Q: I am employed by the Defense Department under the Civil Service Retirement System. My service computation date is Dec. 17, 1977, and I will turn 62 on Nov. 16. Prior to entering civil service, I earned enough quarters to qualify for Social Security. I have not selected a retirement date, but I am considering Dec. 31 of this year or January 2011 to receive a payout from the National Security Personnel System. If I retire Dec. 31, I will be reimbursed for all of my annual leave, but after that reimbursement I would be limited to the maximum amount…
Q: I am a 66-year-old U.S. Postal Service employee who was born in 1944. I had planned to retire with 15 years of service this month; I thought that I would have recovered from on-the-job injuries by this time. I had already signed up for Social Security to begin on my 66th birthday (this month), but now my doctor says he needs to do more surgery on both arms before he will release me at maximum medical improvement. Also, I keep hearing that a voluntary early retirement is on the way and want to wait a little while to see.…
Q: I am a Federal Employees Retirement System employee and have just returned from an overseas tour. My annual leave ceiling while overseas was 360 hours (which is my current leave balance). Now that I am back in the U.S., will I be able to maintain the annual ceiling of 360 indefinitely if I only use “use or lose” time each year, or will the ceiling be adjusted at some point? I am planning for retirement and would like to keep as much leave on the books as possible for a lump-sum payout. A: The ceiling which you had overseas…
Q: Just wondering what happened to the lawsuit about reservists having to take military leave days on their days off. I was a reservist from 1991 to 2007. I don’t think it really affected me more than 2-3 years, but I’m still interested. A: You are referring to the 2003 opinion from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. It held that agencies should have allowed 15 workdays of military leave for reserve training each year instead of 15 calendar days, which was the practice before the law was amended on Dec. 21, 2000, to allow reservists…