TOPICS
TOPICS
Leftover Leave
Lawyers are close to settling an eight-year, $7.5 million class action lawsuit against 17 federal agencies on behalf of thousands of former civil servants.
When federal employees leave the civil service, they are compensated for unused annual leave. The money is paid out in a lump sum based on what their pay would have been if they had worked through the remainder of their vacation days.
But between April 7, 1993, and Sept. 7, 1999, a number of agencies calculated these lump-sum payments without taking yearly pay raises into account.
For example, if an employee retired with 500 hours of unused vacation days on Dec. 31, 1995, and a pay increase of 4 percent took effect on Jan. 7, many of those hours should have been converted using the bumped-up salary.
Attorney Ira Lechner of Katz & Ranzman PC sought to fix miscalculations when he filed the lawsuit in 1998. The settlement will benefit about 150,000 former federal employees, 90,000 of whom are retirees.
Former members of the Senior Executive Service stand to benefit the most from this payout, because they had higher salaries and were allowed to accumulate more annual leave than General Schedule employees.
Lechner said some former SES employees will receive thousands of dollars from the settlement, while others will collect as little as $35.
Also at issue is how these agencies handled Sunday hours. Some lump-sum payments did not calculate Sunday work as premium pay, a mistake the settlement also seeks to remedy.
The Justice Department and Office of Personnel Management are handling the case on behalf of the 17 agencies: Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Energy, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation, and Treasury departments, and the Environmental Protection Agency, General Services Administration, NASA, Social Security Administration and OPM. OPM referred questions to Justice, which had no comment.
The settlement is not final yet. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales still has to approve it as does the presiding judge, Loren Smith of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
So for now, possible claimants should sit tight.
"The long and the short of it is that no one who is affected by this case has to do anything at this time," Lechner said. "There is plenty of time to file a claim."
Federal retirees who qualify for the back pay will receive notices in the mail with instructions on how to file a claim. The information also can be found on the Web at www.mylumpsumpayment.com. People who left the civil service for reasons other than retirement will not receive a notice to file a claim; they will have to take action on their own.
COMMENTS
- I truly believe that an employee tthat is considering retiring should be allowed to sell back the Sick Leave accured during their years of service. You get sick leave the same way as annual leave you earn it for being there at work for the years of service. Some one who has acculmilated (example 800 hrs sick) which was 4 hrs a pay period for a long time, not like annual which starts at 4-6-8max 15 years or more. That means that person is either very healthy or came to work sick when they should not have; even when they took an assignment overseas like Iraq they were still earning only 4hrs per pay period. They are allowed to carry over all the annual accumulated during their tour. I know of one who had two 1 year tours of duty Iraq//Afganistan. Their max carry over for annual leave is 640 and so far the sick leave is about 1120 hrs (avout a year0. We calulated that when retires and add the sick on to years it will only be worth about about 282. added to CSRS retirment. But if he just used his sick leave up now he will be drawing his regular salary including raises. The difference was clear, take all the sick leave now then file for retirment with all that extra annual leave to paid up front. He used the sick leave some how (legally, doctor's excuse, family sick, ect.) Retired with 590 hrs annual. We earn sick leave like annual for ccoming to work and working, so why the difference? Gregory Gills Posted August 4, 2008 4:44 PM
- I hope that the government and private industry changes the way they calculate pay for untaken leave, as well as leave policy itself. 1. Every employee should be required to take a minimum of two consecutive weeks of annual leave every year. This is an internal control because it generally is long enough for many fraud schemes to breakdown or at least to be exposed because someone else has to cover the work for the two weeks and may ask questions about what has been done in the past! This is especially true of anyone working in finance and accounting where there is a greater opportunity to cheat. 2. The key everyone knows is to not take leave from the start until you have built up the maximum leave that may be carried forward each year. Thus, if I start as a grade 9 and build up 240 hours then, as I eventually become a grade 15 I will be paid as a grade 15 for the hours I accumulated as a grade 9 two decades ago! Accumulated leave should be booked each year and paid out at the end of the year so there is no carryover or the carryover only should be 80 hours. 3. The law suit should be in favor of the employees because the rules at the time were clearly in their favor; however, government should change its leave accumulation rules immediately upon settlement of the case -- not an appeal of the case! Taxpayer Posted April 18, 2006 7:41 AM
- I wish they'd let you sell back leave while you're still working. I could use an extra week's pay! GovExec.com reader Posted April 19, 2006 6:44 PM
