How Does Sick Leave Affect Your Federal Employee Retirement Benefits?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 ก.ค. 2024
- This week's question comes from Sheryl; a Federal Employee who is due to retire in 5 years time. Tammy gives a comprehensive answer as to how sick and annual leave are handled when calculating one's Federal Employee Retirement Benefits.
You can read the full article here: plan-your-federal-retirement....
If you have more questions about the effect federal leaves have on your retirement benefits, write to us in the comments and we will try to answer it in a future episode.
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I rarely go on annual leave that I have use or lose I am forced to use. I don’t need to use sick leave at all. I’m saving it all up for the final retirement calculation
Unused sick leave doesn’t give you much extra in retirement, in fact, its not even worth factoring into your calculation. You are much better off using sick leave whenever you can before you retire. It would be great if they had a better way to reward employees like you that don’t use/need sick leave.
Thank you very much!
Our pleasure! We work with a lot of Federal employees who have been searching for information just like this online and are unsure what is accurate. Happy to provide information like this from licensed financial advisors who specialize in understanding federal benefits.
New Years Eve is not considered one of the 10 federal holidays for the United States Postal Service and its employees. We work on Saturdays so in 2021 Friday 12/31 is a workday and our holiday is on Saturday the 1st.
Great info. Does the sick leave calculation also apply to executive branch departments like the Tennessee Valley Authority?
Thank you Tammy, very clear and you helped me confirm that if I go out on 31 Dec 2022 I will only have 2 days hanging (37 years, 10 months and 2 days total service with SL). My HR won't estimate what my total time would be then and would only estimate based on my current SL (with 24 PPs left). If I didn't see this video I'd think I couldn't retire on 31 December as I would have had 28 days that would be lost. I appreciate the help!!!!!! IS there a chart or calculator for finding your FERS Creditable Service based on your RSCD?????
Wow. I had no idea sick leave was able to be cashed-out! Thanks so much.
you cant cash out sick leave, it can only b used towards your tenure, and it is calculated at 25%. so if you retire with 1 year of sick leave as your balance, 1/4 of that can b used towards tenure, you will not get a check for it. Although if you use your sick leave, obviously it pays out 100 % for your time off. your annual leave will cut you a check for any unused at retirement
Got it.
How long does it normally take for DFAS to deposit the lump sump Leave Payout in the bank account? Thanks!
Hi Tammy I know this is such a late comment here but I have looking for somebody to assist me to calculate my sick leave and annual leave, will hit 20 yrs next year Sept 2023, got about 600 plus in my annual leave and about 480 hrs sick leave. What month of the year do you recommend I should retire? I will. By the way I will be 65 yrs old in June 2023. Thanls for any advice
fantastic ecplanation. I'm on CSRS and my HR is pretty clueless. Do you cover CSRS also?
Yes we do! Go to our website at www.plan-you-federal-retirement.com and request an initial consultation with us.
Does unused sick leave count towards your creditable service if you take MRA+10 and postpone your annuity?
You only can carry 240 hours on the books. How can you retiring with 400 hours? Plus the pump pay out gets ate up by taxes. Take the leave before retirement.
A federal employee’s carryover limit depends on their agency and their trade union and/or job category. Some agencies have had 440 hour carryover limits since forever.
@@bradmclaughlin2354Carry over 240 , max earn 208. So if you carry over max and don’t take leave in the last year you Have 448 on Dec 31st
So if you reach your MRA and have 29 and a half years of service with 6 months of unused sick leave, you could retire under MRA plus 10 but not under optional retirement even though when the sick leave is added on you would have 30 years of service.
No! Sick leave credit is beneficial but cannot be used to establish eligibility.
When did this sick leave rule changed cause in Jan 1, 2014 the rule said that you could sell the hours and now I see this added time. I already retired and got paid 100% of my S/L but now ex coworkers are asking.
False! The Jan 1, 2014 rule did not “say that you could sell the hours”! Not for Sick Leave it didn’t. It is no wonder that your coworkers are asking. Someone has been deceiving them with falsehoods.
What is the web site for sick leave computation tables charts?
Here's a link to an article and video we put together on the sick leave conversion chart:plan-your-federal-retirement.com/fers-retirement-and-sick-leave/
I'm 60 years old with over 30 years creditable federal service. My current thinking is to retire in Sept 2023; because my birthday is August 1st I will be 62. Now, according to the leave chart, I will have approximately four months worth of sick leave. I know from this video that it is added to my total credible time. My questions is this: could I select a earlier retirement date (say end of June 2023 - before my 62 birthday) within the three months of creditable sick leave to to get the 10% retirement bonus?
I hope your retirement plan worked out. Congrats nonetheless!
Does this apply for someone who will leave federal service with 20 years of federal service, prior to their retirement age? or is it only applicable for someone who is eligible to obtain annuity upon retirement?
Regardless of whether you retire with an Immediate retirement or a Deferred/Postponed retirement, unused sick leave and annual leave are treated the same way. Unused sick leave gets added to your pension calculation, and unused annual leave gets paid out as a lump sum.
If I have 4 month and 17 days of sick leave; do the 17 days don’t get credited as service time? Only the number of months get credited?
Only the even months get credited but…
…the odd hours are automatically added to odd days of service to create an additional bonus month!
Ok
Happy to provide content like this. In fact, it is kind of what gets us out of bed in the morning! We love talking to Feds and helping them navigate their complex benefits.
Does your sick leave be added to your years of service at your current grade and step before retiring? For example if you got a step in the yar you retire and retire at 11 step 8. Would your sick year months be added at this grade?
The number of hours you have of sick leave will get converted to days, months, or more of creditable service for your pension using a Sick Leave Conversion chart from OPM.
Your Grade and Step level does not increase the rate at which your sick leave hours are converted to creditable service.
I mean does it play a role in the high 3. If you are adding 8 months of sick leave. Its added at your current step and grade, correct?@@planyourfederalretirement
I dont see any advantage to save either AL or SL. (Outside the lump sum as a bridge payment until benefits kick in). For AL, taxes will be taken out either way and with SL, you are getting compensated Pennies on the dollar.
Think harder then. The benefits of conserving paid leave are clear to most of us.
The music is very distracting, makes this hard to watch
Thank you for the suggestion, we will correct this in the future.
First question: why is this video entitled "How Does Sick Leave Affect your Federal Employee Retirmement Benefits" when it is all about annual leave? Secondly: My agency does not permit an employee to care more than a 240 hr a/l balance past the end of the calendar year (unless there are special permissions). I think this is pretty universal for all federal employees. Not sure how the hypothetical employee ended up with 448 hrs a/l.
The video covers both annual and sick leave credit. In the year of retirement, many employees will not take their leave accruals and if they retire before the end of the leave year, they can have a leave balance of the carry over from the prior year (up to 240) plus the annual leave accrued for the current year (up to 208 hours in 26 pay periods).
Example-Retirement date is December 31, 2022. In January 2022 you have 240 hours that you carried over from 2021. If you never use the leave you accumulate for the calander year of 2022 which is 8 hrs x26 pp=208 hrs. 208x240=448, so on December 31, 2022 you will be paid out for 448 hrs.
They rip you off big time on your sick leave. You’re better off using all of it. It would take several lifetimes to get paid what you accrued. If they cashed you out like they do with AL it would be an incentive to save your sick leave and people wouldn’t be calling in all the time.
@@pameladavis3991
Thanks for the advice. I only have 800 sick leave hours anyway. The amount it would raise my creditable government hours, for retirement calculation, is by a few dollars a month. A joke. I will call in sick every Monday and Friday for the last year I'm on the job instead :)
@@Borat_Kazakh Do that, you will get 100%, I did it and ended up with 7 total hours of sick leave which I got paid for them 1l00%. Now I see things has changed. Don't like that accrued time, nope
People should use all of their leave before retirement !!! they will get the full salary pay and plus earn more leave !!! 12 hrs every pay period. Plus the kicker is your time of service will increase , which will mean a higher retirement monthly payment for lifetime !! One shouldn't work, work, work then retire and do nothing .. as its a big shock to your health.... One should start taking lots of leave a year or two before retirement to determine how your life will change in retirement... by having lots of free time. These are my thoughts ...
Exactly. Finally someone sees the bigger picture.
Welllllll.... There is the sick leave abuse thing, which you can get in big trouble for. I understand there's plenty of "wink and nod" understandings with supervisors that will allow employees to use sick leave very liberally, like what you describe, but for those without such arrangements, or for those that prefer to keep things "kosher", saving sick leave and boosting your pension is a better way to go, from a strictly financial view.
@@winterversion You can't take it all at once and they can't ask for a dr note if you take one or two off at a time. Many supervisors I know tell people to use up all their sick leave before retirement and push people to use leave all the time.
@@jimmywalters3071I've heard of supervisors that DID allow employees to take it all at once, for a whole year. Also seen supervisors that wanted a doctor's note even for one day off (because sick leave abuse is a real thing). So just depends on what you can/cannot "get away" with.
@@winterversion Not talking about taking a year of sick leave all at once .. but spread it out over a few years. People who were allowed to take time off , sick leave only had a few months or weeks , not a year.