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  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
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  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
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  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
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  Finally! Mike Causey wrote about this in the Federal Diary back in the 1990s and I helped him with explaining the rules for how the annual leave payment was to be paid. We received responses from some payroll offices telling us we were wrong! The rules seemed pretty clear, so we continued to provide information about the value of the lump sum annual leave payment.

  As a result OPM issued clarification on Lump Sum Leave payments: http://www.opm.gov/oca/leave/HTML/lumpsum.pdf and http://www.opm.gov/oca/leave/HTML/lumpsum.htm.

  We received a lot of feedback over the past 10 years from employees who did not receive the full payment for their unused annual leave. I hope this becomes final soon!

  Tammy Flanagan Posted April 14, 2006 10:32 AM