Q: You answered a question with the following: “A: According to OPM, you only need to complete your 80-hour work week to get credit for any annual and sick leave earned during that pay period.” I cannot find this clarification at the OPM website. The “popular” opinion amongst co-workers is that you must be employed for the entire pay/leave period if you have a standard Monday-Friday work week in order to receive annual leave credit for that period. Specifically, if I retire on Dec. 31, 2010, with 80 hours worked, will I receive credit for pay period 26, or must…
Browsing: LEAVE
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…
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…
Q: I will soon be accepting a GS-13 position with the Department of Homeland Security. I am retired military and understand the buyback system; my question pertains to leave accrual. How will leave accrual be determined if I choose (or choose not to) to buy back my military time? Also, I have two deployments for which I received an Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal. Is that time automatically approved for leave accrual? A: Unless you make a deposit for your active-duty service and waive your military retired pay, you’d only get leave accrual credit for those periods of service when you…
Q: I began working in the federal government in August 2008. I am currently buying back 13 years of military service: nine years in the Marine Corps and four years at the Naval Academy. I understand once I complete the military service buy-back I will have 13 years added to my creditable service date for retirement purposes. My leave service computation date currently reflects the nine years of Marine Corps service plus my 1.5 years as civilian employee. As a result, I am earning six hours of leave per pay period. I questioned my human resources department as to why…
Q: Suppose a CSRS employee has more than two months unused Annual Leave and plans to retire soon. I understand employees can get a lump sum payout for unused A/L. Yet it seemed one can alternatively request permission to take two months of A/L starting at the time he wants to quit and officially retire after spending the A/L. In that way, he sacrifices the lump sum payout to gain two extra months of service credit which boosts his CSRS pension. Self-calculations indicate that is a significant boost, but it seems most people opt for lump sum. So there may…
Q: I retired from the military, and have worked in civil service since June 2008. Am I entitled to receive credit for leave based on my time served from either the Persian Gulf War or based on any one of many service medals that I have been authorized to wear? A: For non-disability retired members of the armed forces, leave accrual credit is only given for actual service during a war declared by Congress or while participating in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign ribbon is authorized. Your branch of service can tell you which periods of service…
Q: I will be retiring soon with more than 42 years of service. I have 8 3/4 months of saved up sick leave using the formula of 174 hours equals one month. I have earlier this year taken a few sick days. Can I convert the days I took to annual leave so as to restore my sick leave and give me nine months of sick leave to help increase my pension? A: You’ll need to check with you agency to see if they would be able to adjust your leave records and substitute annual leave for the sick leave that you actually…
Q: I a Civil Service Retirement System Offset employee and I am trying to decide whether to retire Dec. 31, 2010, or Jan. 1 2011. I am in the Senior Executive Service and will have over 800 hours of annual leave for a lump-sum payout. If I retire Dec. 31, is that lump sum considered part of 2010 income or 2011? I believe I will not pay Social Security tax on the lump sum if it falls in 2010, since I usually have this covered by September of each year. A: Your lump-sum payment is considered to be earned income…