Annual Leave Accumulation

No matter what type of retirement plan a full-time worker has, the basic rules for paid leave are the same. The years you’ve spent working for the government determine your maximum salary. With less than three years, you get paid for four hours every two weeks (13 days a year). If you have worked for the company for more than three years but less than 15, you get six hours of pay each time you get paid (20 days per year). If you’ve worked there for 15 years or more, you get eight hours per pay period (26 days a year).

Senior executive service members and senior-level scientific and technical employees receive eight hours of annual leave per pay period. This becomes a total of 26 days a year, regardless of the length of service.

If you work part-time as a GS, Wage, or Postal Service employee, the amount of annual leave you receive is determined by the number of hours you work.

Depending on your job type, you may be able to carry over some of your annual leave. GS and Wage Grade workers can carry over up to 240 hours of work (30 days). Employees who work abroad can carry over 560 hours (45 days). A Postal Service worker in a bargaining unit can work more than 440 hours (55 days). A Postal Service Executive and Administrative Schedule worker can have more than 560 hours of work on their schedule (70 days). You can only work 720 hours if you are in the Senior Executive Service (90 days).

You’ll lose them if you don’t use any hours above that level by the end of the leave year, which varies each year but is usually a week or so into the new calendar year.

You will receive a one-time payment for that leave when you retire or leave the government in any other capacity. This sum is equivalent to the salary you would have received had you remained on the job through the end of your leave. Suppose you are a Postal Service bargaining unit employee. If so, you’ll get paid for any unused vacation time you’ve accumulated over the years and any time off you earn in the year you retire up to the maximum amount allowed by your bargaining unit.

Your agency will multiply the number of unused annual leave hours by your hourly pay rate to get this number.

Here’s how they’ll figure out how much your leave is worth:

• Your basic pay rate
• Locality pay or another type of geographic adjustment based on where you live
• Locality pay or other similar adjustments based on where you live

• Annual adjustments across the board
• Administratively uncontrollable overtime (AUO) compensation, availability compensation, and standby duty compensation

• Night differentials for FWS employees only (including the portion of lump-sum periods that would have occurred during scheduled night shifts)
• Regular overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act if you were on an unusual tour of duty
• Compensation differentials for supervisors
• Postal differences and cost-of-living stipends for non-foreign regions
• Postal allowances for overseas duty

Bonuses, allowances, as-needed overtime, holiday pay, and certain differentials are not included in your basic pay.

Compare what you get in your paycheck with how much is taken out for retirement contributions to see if a particular type of pay is part of your basic pay.

Contact Information:
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 9568933225

Bio:
Rick Viader is a Federal Retirement Consultant that uses proven strategies to help federal employees achieve their financial goals and make sure they receive all the benefits they worked so hard to achieve.

In helping federal employees, Rick has seen the need to offer retirement plan coaching where Human Resources departments either could not or were not able to assist. For almost 14 years, Rick has specialized in using federal government benefits and retirement systems to maximize retirement incomes.

His goals are to guide federal employees to achieve their financial goals while maximizing their retirement incomes.