Accrued Sick Leave Retirement Credit - FERS Employees
As the majority of the workforce is now under FERS, it is with increasing frequency that the question is raised as to why FERS does not allow retirement credit for unused sick leave. Finally, early this year Congressman Moran introduced a bill that would permit FERS employees who retire with unused sick leave to convert the sick leave to time or hours of work and then convert that to dollars and receive a lump-sum payment of up to $10-15,000 dollars. While the recognition of this effort to recognize the accrual of sick leave was desirable, the bill fell far short of meaningful rewards to employees and most were disappointed by the bill’s provisions.
But, due to the lobbying efforts of many organizations including AFGE, the FMA, the Fed/Mil Section of IAFC, IAFF, etc. An entirely new version of the bill was tacked on to H.R. 1108 – the Family Smoking Prevention and Control Act. This bill was introduced by Cong. Waxman (D-CA) on 2/15/07. It was reported out of Committee and more importantly, passed the House on July 30, 2008 with new sick leave credit amendment. The amendment is found at Section 407 of the bill and provides:
This legislation opens the door for amendments to the entire FERS plan.